Sunlight at the Edge of the World
by Kira
Summary: Vaughn's voyage to the edge of his world uncovers a project he wished had stayed buried in the past. *complete*
1. Part 1 of 4

Disclaimer: Alias belongs to JJ Abrams and ABC. Not me. So please don't sue me, okay? Author's Note: Won't be long, promise. I'd like to thank Beth, who gave me the motivation to go with this story, and who helped me conceive the beginning. Jen, for giving me an open mind and giving support that was worth more than feedback. And Laura amy, who's silly antics and prompt reading helped me go on when I was stuck. You three are the reason this fic has been written. This story was originally intended for Cover Me's February Challenge. However, the fic grew too long to be included in that challenge, so you will see elements of that challenge reflected here. Heavily, well, totally inspired by the Coldplay song "The Scientist." (only timeline note: after first season. Before phase one. That's it. Mostly stand-alone.)  
  
"You need not fear the demon hosts around you; it is most important to tame your mind within." -The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa  
  
The dream was always the same. Well, as alike as dreams could be. There was always something, something that was different - the color of a balloon, the words of a passer-by, maybe someone had a different color shirt or hair color. But the content, the content of the dream was constant; like a drum that beat to its own rhythm, never relenting despite the cries, the pleading.  
  
And that's what he would do to stop the dream. Never vocal, though. His cries were a deeper kind, a kind unheard by the world. They couldn't know what he dreamt, what he knew. It was a pain he would not wish upon another human being, a pain he held close to his heart.  
  
There was some time that the dream stopped, that he was without the terror, the fear of sleeping. And while at first he felt blessed - that finally his cries had been heard - he felt broken. As if a piece of him was missing. For awhile, he dealt with it, finding other ways to make up for this lack of feeling that had begun to consume him. He lived on the edge, doing everything he could to feel alive, to reassure him that life was here, worth living.  
  
And then it returned.  
  
It was almost a comfort. But he realized he would never be completely free, that he must live with it for the rest of his days, and nothing short of death would free him. So he learned to deal the best he could. And it helped him keep some hold on his sanity.  
  
It always started the same - that never changed.  
  
There was the sound of the ocean, oh, how calming the ocean was! It was early morning, he could tell by the streaks of sunlight rising and falling with the small waves crashing onto the beach. He could never see the sun itself, no matter how many times he had tried to lift his head to see it, he could not. Like a movie, his eyes were directed towards the end of the boardwalk; ;a boardwalk that had appeared out of his mind, under his feet. At the end, he could make out a lone figure, a tallish man leaning against the railing, his mind on things other than the people passing him.  
  
A child walked by clutching the string of a red balloon. Or maybe blue this time. Her mother smiled and held her other hand, keeping her only child close to her side. They couldn't be separated, they were enjoying the day together, joy written plainly on their features. For a moment, he thought the woman looked like his own mother, but she passed too quickly. Never base anything on uncertainties, he told himself.  
  
The figure at the end of the boardwalk pushed off from the railing and turned his way. His expression was unseen from this distance, and the dreamer found himself running in the man's direction, his feet moving without being told to do so. But it were as if he were simply running on a spinning wheel, and no matter how fast he ran, he never reached the man, never got any closer than he was. And his head would try to snap up to the sky but he could not look into the quickly falling sun. His feet kept going, his mind willing him to run faster! Look for the light! And while these directions were ordered, the man at the end of the boardwalk would disappear down the steps at the end, gone from view.  
  
Sound would come into the dream at that point, a rush of chaos that swept him off his feet and seemed to throw him around. The sensation was much akin to that of falling when one first goes to sleep, when the room will tilt off edge and for a moment, one fears slipping off their bed into oblivion. The sun was gone, the sound of crashing waves filling his ears. They were so loud! And in the distance, he could hear a gunshot. He knew that was coming. He had known for years. It was what happened next that he feared. And sometimes, he - -  
  
"- - and I said, that can't be right."  
  
"Things like that just shouldn't happen."  
  
"No. All right, it's a somewhat overcast morning on this glorious Monday, the 25th of April -- "  
  
Generally pissed at the necessary yet hated electronic prompted the early morning ritual of slamming the snooze button with all weight and force possible. Now, this often depended on the level of exhaustion being battled at the moment, making the hand miss on a few occasions. It did not miss this morning. Groaning, Michael Vaughn, government employee, rolled onto his back in the mess of covers and pillows, arm coming to shield his eyes in a most clichéd manor. Generally, when waking up from a particularly bad dream, he'd let his mind clear a bit before starting with his morning routine, and, consequently, swearing at the fact that the sun was still asleep.  
  
But this morning, like many others he'd experienced in his lifetime, left a bad taste in his mouth. One that would not go away. Yet years of practice had made it so he would not show his bad experience, and as the memory faded away, the radio clicked on again, focusing his energy and attention on something completely different. The bad music pouring out of the small, otherwise placid device. Why it was set on this station was unknown to him - it was still on the factor preset position. Oh well.  
  
Heaving himself out of bed, he stole a glance out the window. Why did he have to go into work so early? He was sure, no, positive, that there were people out there with the same amount of education as him, the same talents, who were making twice what he made and could sleep till a reasonable hour. He was also sure that these same people had normal business hours, hours that wouldn't cause rifts to form in interpersonal relationships, be the focus of countless arguments, and cause sleep deprivation on more days than not.  
  
And he couldn't even flaunt the perks his job presented. He had top secret clearance (in most cases), but could he tell anyone? No. Working for the state department, as he was told to tell everyone, was not glamorous. Nor did it bring in a large amount of money, which he was reminded of as he pulled a clean suit from his small closet. His mind said small since he was in one of those flux periods with his attachment, Alice. When the relationship was on, it could be signified by the closet changing from small to inhumanly sized to fit this many garments, half of which do not belong to the closet's owner.  
  
He was glad it was just small. He needed to get some new clothes.  
  
Yet despite the short-comings of his job, or of his apartment, there was one thing that brought him joy this crisp fall morning. And as he put on his suit coat and check his appearance one last time in his small mirror, a slight smile could be seen on his face.  
  
He'd been woken up before the worst part of the dream.  
  
- -  
  
Vaughn really liked his office. He enjoyed the semi-darkness the dark woods provided, and rarely switched on the overhead lights. The small lap, placed so perfectly on the desk, provided all the light he needed. Outside his door, people ran from office to office, their lives caught up in a whirlwind of activity, of secrecy and patriotism. But in his office, in his office all was calm. He could control the elements inside the four walls. Nothing was beyond his grasp.  
  
It was nothing like the Joint Operations Center, where chaos seemed to live and have a throne room somewhere in the hidden upper levels. It was disorganized, hectic, and giving a lot of the agents stationed down there ideas of finding new assignments. And there were no windows. They were inside a closed capsule, completely cut off from the outside world, the very world they were trying to protect. Information came in as digits, assembled by the computers, and given to them because, frankly, seeing something with their own eyes wasn't something they could do.  
  
It wasn't like the intelligence world he'd read about in his father's journal.  
  
Like a bedtime story, the opening lines described the perfection the writer/main character lived in. A darling wife, an adorable son. The writer longed only for the disclosure to live an equally perfect life, one without the shroud of secrecy around it. But just as he had a duty to his family to be there as much as he could, he felt, no, believed in the duty to his country that so many of his fellow Americans had turned their backs on in favor of capitalist gain. Personal gain.  
  
The worn pages, gone over so many times by the son who survived him, told the story of a man struggling with his life, with the lies of the past and those of time yet to be. When Vaughn was younger, he was thrilled by the sketchy accounts of missions gone by, the only let-down was the fact that the passages were dominated by his father's feelings and opinion instead of the action he wanted to read. As the days wore on and the pages more filled than blank, the father wished to be freed from his ever-growing contradictions. Was patriotism supposed to be like this? What had ever happened to the men the father had seen as a boy, men that had pushed him in this direction?  
  
The reader found it humorous that, one day, after reading a few passages while waiting for a program to come on TV, that he had started asking the same questions of himself.  
  
It was then that the journal became some kind of instruction booklet for how to handle his life. And then the irony came, the irony that he had an instruction booklet for life that no one else had, handed down by a dead father.  
  
"You're staring way to intently at that picture, its freaky." This, of course, caused Vaughn to snap his head up, surprised by the sudden burst of exposition. The surprised expression on his friend's face caused Eric Weiss to laugh, and saunter farther into the office.  
  
"What's up?" Vaughn asked, swiveling his chair back to face the large desk. At Weiss' raised brow, he turned his attention to the thin file sitting on his desk, undoubtedly placed there by the group assistant while he was staring off into space. Great, budget reports. Under his cost number. And they didn't pay for long distance, despite the fact that the CIA operated outside the United States.  
  
"What's up with you?" Weiss asked, slipping into a chair. He never seemed to actually sit, instead, he fell, or slid, always an action that was so casual, Vaughn was surprised he didn't fall right out of the chair. The action was lessened a bit than before, but it was still there. Another Weiss trademark move.  
  
"What are you talking about?" his friend asked, pretending to be interested in the jumble of numbers on the sheet of paper that was the current focus of his attention.  
  
"What am I talking about?" Weiss asked as if the question was ludicrous. "Let's see. What didn't you do this morning? Say hi? Grab a doughnut? C'mon, you're off today, my friend."  
  
"Off?" Vaughn responded, lifting his head. The yellow light from the lamp reflected off his sharp features, causing him to look more exhausted than he already was.  
  
"Yes, off, as in acting slightly altered, and I don't, I mean, I hope it's not an illegal form of altercation," Weiss commented. Vaughn shook his head defiantly. Weiss raised his palms in mock surrender. "Right, I know, just checking, buddy. Anyway, sure, coming in here might be a little different, but I know you so," and here, Weiss leaned close to his friend, almost nose to nose, "what's going on?"  
  
"Weiss," Vaughn replied seriously, not moving a bit, "nothing is going on."  
  
"Oh, you are wrong there, buddy. There is a lot going on. Every day. But let's think of it this way - if you don't tell me, I'm pulling in Rene."  
  
"Pull her. There's nothing to say," Vaughn sighed, leaning back in his chair. Weiss sat still for a second (only a second), then promptly stood.  
  
"Fine. If you don't want to tell me, don't. I'll just go - "  
  
"Weiss, it's nothing you haven't heard before. And I am not off. Now get out of my office," he said, playfully, holding his budget sheet up in the air. "Before this gets to me and I kill someone."  
  
"I'm off the ticket, right? One near death experience is enough?" Weiss inquired, leaning in the doorframe of the office. Vaughn smirked.  
  
"Yeah, one is enough, or so I hope," Vaughn responded vaguely, his eyes flickering off to the left. His friend shook his head and resigned himself to leaving, but not before one last remark.  
  
"Fine, fine, you're hopeless, anyway."  
  
. .  
  
He was coming down with something.  
  
It was around lunch time, near the vending machines, when he first got wind of this approaching sickness. As he was putting his change in the machine for a quick lunch, a headache blossomed in his head. A small one at the beginning, nothing a little aspirin wouldn't fix. So, he took his bag of potato chips and headed back up to his office, vowing to himself that he'd buy something a little more nutritious when he had time. Even though he knew he wouldn't, he still told himself so.  
  
They only got into the office once a week, spending their remaining days off at the joint operations center. In fact, he'd be back there that night, after a quick shower and a fresh suit. He was still running on yesterday's time and energy, thankful for coffee and any form of sugar he could find. Paperwork Day. That's what Weiss had nicknamed the one day a week Kendall designated for the agents to go back and see their once-homes, some sort of normality restored. Of course, they always rotated what days they returned, just to throw the agents off-whack. That, or, as Weiss surmised, Devlin was messing with them.  
  
Whatever it was, it wouldn't last long, and the chaotic life that had taken the place of the normally placid one would return. At least Vaughn wasn't just a desk agent anymore. He worked in the field now, which was better than before.  
  
It wouldn't help if he were sick. Which is where he was headed. He could feel it.  
  
Vaughn almost made it to his desk without one interruption when he saw who was sitting in his chair, a Chinese take-out box in his hand, and chopsticks in the other. Weiss. A plaque on his life.  
  
"Hey, buddy. Looks like you've got a nice lunch there," he commented. Vaughn smirked and took a seat in one of his visitor's chairs.  
  
"Doesn't look like you're doing any better there," he responded, tearing open his bag of chips. Weiss laughed before shoving more of his noodles into his mouth. "So what do you want?" Vaughn pressed, munching on a chip. Weiss finished chewing and grinned over at his friend.  
  
"I miss us," he said, his face completely sincere. Vaughn paused, his hand halfway in the small bag of chips. "We never talk anymore."  
  
"What are you talking about? We talk all the time," he replied, tone light. He plucked another chip from the bag and popped it in his mouth. His headache had gotten worse, and he could swear his head was just a bit congested. How could something like this just appear like this? Wasn't he supposed to go to sleep, then wake up sick?  
  
Weiss was snapping his fingers in front of Vaughn's face.  
  
"What?" he snapped back.  
  
"You spaced out there for a moment. Never going to get any work done that way," his friend replied. "You know what we need?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"A night out, like we used to," Weiss answered, scooping around for the last bits of his noodles.  
  
"It would never work. We'd get paged 10 minutes into happy hour," Vaughn commented, shaking his head, a smile on his face. Weiss finished off the small pieces as he nodded his head, agreeing. The two ate in silence, until Weiss tossed his container and chop sticks into the nearby garbage can and leaned forward, elbows on the four open file folders atop the desk. Next to them sat a yellow legal pad, notes hastily scrawled upon them in Vaughn's distinctive yet neat handwriting. Weiss' eyes wandered over to the words, most of them short notes jotted down to be typed or formally written later on reports and forms, but some, some were abstract, disjointed fragments of sentences and thoughts put there absentmindedly by the desk's owner.  
  
He read them slowly, wondering what was going on in his best friend's head to prompt such thoughts. Each man had his demons, and Vaughn had more than he let on, that Weiss knew. It was just getting it out of him, getting him to open up, if just a little bit, that was the hardest part. Which was part of the reason why he always dragged his co-worker out for drinks every so often. There were just some things that people needed to at least say out loud just for the sake of saying them. He decided to take a chance.  
  
"What's this mean?" he asked as Vaughn scrunched up and threw his chip bag into the same waste basket. He turned back to his guest, eyebrows raised.  
  
"What, my notes? It's gibberish, just stuff I wrote down while going through this huge mountain of paper that's taken up residence on my desk," Vaughn explained, standing up to stretch. That was the one thing about being back here instead of the operations center - you were a lot more stationary.  
  
"No, this. Something about 'I can never get there'. Get where, my friend?" he reached, anticipating the response. Vaughn froze, then rounded the desk to lean over the legal pad. "And don't tell me you didn't write that. It's back again, isn't it?"  
  
Vaughn sighed, running a hand down his tired face. "When isn't it? I'm just tired, that's all."  
  
"Heard you got out around 4 this morning," his friend supplemented.  
  
"Yeah. And woke up at 6."  
  
"Preaching to the choir, buddy," Weiss said. "But the choir doesn't have demons waiting for us."  
  
"C'mon."  
  
"Well, okay, but you've got more. I think you've taken Marlene's, she doesn't have one. Neither does Beth. So that's two more. Then there's - "  
  
"Point made. Listen, I'll get some sleep when I have time. Which won't be any time soon if you insist on taking my office hostage. Go do your own work," Vaughn commanded, swiping the legal pad and motioning to the door with it.  
  
Weiss didn't move.  
  
"I'm serious. Out."  
  
He still didn't move.  
  
"Now."  
  
Nothing.  
  
"Weiss."  
  
Still nothing.  
  
"All right. What? What is it that you could possibly want?" Vaughn demanded, putting a hand on the back of the tall-back chair in a fatherly fashion. Weiss smiled. It was only after years of friendship that someone, such as him, knew exactly what buttons to push in order to get what he wanted. Always. He never really thought about the fact that this was in fact a two way street, and Vaughn was perfectly capable of reversing the situation.  
  
"Michael, how long have we been friends?" he asked, looking up past the hand tightly gripping the top of the chair. Vaughn sighed and rubbed his forehead, afraid of where this was headed.  
  
"Four years," he replied.  
  
"And in those four years, how many times have I asked things of you," Weiss continued. Vaughn simply looked down at him, an expression of disbelief painted on his face. "Right. Okay, but how many times have you asked things of me?" Another sharp look, a scoff coming from him. "This isn't going too well."  
  
"What was your first clue?" Vaughn asked, releasing his grip on the chair.  
  
"We need a guy's night out, Mike. Tonight. Things should be light, we'll have time."  
  
"No."  
  
"Please?" Weiss asked, launching himself out of the chair and whirling around to grip Vaughn's hands. "I'm begging you. You need it."  
  
That was the exact moment the group secretary walked in.  
  
"Well, I see things haven't changed while you've been away," she commented sarcastically. Weiss simply turned his head. "Yeah, right. Anyway, you've got a call on line 3." Vaughn pulled his hands from Weiss' grip and swung down to sit in his now-vacated chair while his friend mimicked a phone and mouthed 'call me'. The secretary shook her head before following him out of the doorway, the strings of a conversation following suit. For a moment, Vaughn wished he'd eaten something more than a simple bag of chips for lunch. He'd be regretting it later, but it was expected.  
  
Who was calling him here, instead of on his cell? "Michael Vaughn," he answered.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Hi," Vaughn replied, relaxing and leaning back in his chair. He could feel a sneeze crawling up his sinuses, another sign of the coming illness. His lack of sleep was only going to make it worse, he knew it, but once again, it couldn't be helped. For someone who had such a desire to control every aspect of his life, it was certainly spinning out of control. No longer did he hold the regular hours of a desk jock, at time when sleep came on a regular basis and he knew when he was going to be in and out of the office.  
  
Which was probably one of the reasons this phone call was coming at the end of the lunch hour. It was that small amount of time in which even the most productive would welcome an excuse to elongate their lunch break to the limits of time. Even if a boss walked by, the plausible excuse that one was on their break and would return to work as soon as the call was concluded covered the slacking employee.  
  
"That's all you can say to me, hi? I haven't heard from you for months, Michael," came the patient, edged words. Another sigh, the second in a 10 minute span, escaped Vaughn's lips. Was this day marked on his calendar to be a pre-designated "Bad Day"? Was he doomed to have karma snap back on him all at once? He really did try to help everyone and make sure he was following the golden rule, he truly did. Yet he was only human, and was prone to make a mistake here and there. And all those little mistakes were converging on him at once.  
  
"I've been busy. I'm sorry, mom," he responded. Something. He had to do something to distract himself. His eyes wandered to the pile of folders recently delivered, not the best distraction in the world, but it would do. Paperwork was the creation of something truly evil, put on this Earth to stress out and piss off government workers who made too little to be dealing with this.  
  
"Sorry? Oh, Michael, what - "  
  
The sneeze could not be held back any longer. It wiped out the rest of his mother's sentence, affirming that he indeed was sick. How he got this way, he didn't know. His mind zoomed to the people he'd been in contact with in the last week or so. Who was sick out of that group?  
  
Sydney. He was going to kill her.  
  
"Were you even listening to a word I said? Michael? Michael!"  
  
"What?" he asked for the second time today. Wasn't being easily distracted a symptom of having an illness? Or sleep deprivation?  
  
"Are you distracted by work?" she asked. He shook his head as if she could see him.  
  
"No," he responded. Long ago he had learned the consequences of lying to one's mother, especially his. Like all mothers, she had that extra sense that tipped her off to when her son was lying to her. It had to be the inflections in his voice that no one else could hear, because he'd had training in this department from the government. He was doomed if his mother was ever brought in during an interrogation.  
  
"What's bothering you?" she inquired, her voice soft, mother-like. Ahh, how rare a sound that was, from her, that is. His mother was a hard, tough woman, shaped from raising two half-orphaned children for years. With their father gone, she had to take the place of disciplinarian, a post she had half-shared already.  
  
Vaughn, however, was no longer 6 years old nor was he living at home. So one would say he wouldn't have to deal with her anymore, right? He was too nice a guy, too devoted a man, to simply tell her he was busy and hang up.  
  
First Weiss, now her. What was next?  
  
"It's nothing, I just need a little sleep," he responded. He could hear her sigh though the phone.  
  
"Something changed at work, I know it. You used to get sleep and be in your office. Now I can't even find you. And I know you have a cell phone, you just never bothered to give me the number."  
  
"It'll be over soon," Vaughn answered almost defensively.  
  
"Will you be there when it ends?" she asked.  
  
"I can only hope," he whispered, the documents before him shifting out of focus for a moment. Facing one's own mortality was hard, frightening even. When Vaughn had first been told he was becoming a handler, when he had first been told he might need to refresh his field training; he took a weekend to think, to face it. He'd come to terms, realizing that someone who feared death would only bring it about faster with their panic to avoid death. He learned that first-hand in Taipei, when he came face to face with death and calmly figured a way to escape.  
  
And then, there was Weiss. His best friend faced with the same dire set of circumstances. Yet he didn't have a screwdriver in his pocket that could save him. Mortality, he'd faced. But lately he felt he was facing it more and more, and soon enough, he was worried, no, apprehensive about the fact that he may never live to see his goals played out.  
  
"You are too hard on yourself, Michael. You do not have to be there, at the front lines of every fight."  
  
"It's my fight," he responded.  
  
"Yours alone?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Well, take a break. You're no good to anyone half-asleep. And please tell me you're not globetrotting this weekend," she said. Vaughn thought for a moment. Plans, what plans did he have for this weekend?  
  
"No, I'll be home," he responded, somewhat hesitantly. "Why?"  
  
"You need to come home, to visit. That's an order," she laughed. A knock on the doorframe pulled Vaughn's attention to Weiss, who held a folder in his hand.  
  
"Listen, I've really got to go. I'll talk to you later."  
  
"I'm sure. Bye." And she hung up. Weiss grinned.  
  
"Mom?" he asked.  
  
"Don't ask. What's up?" he asked, placing the phone back in its cradle. Weiss entered, apparently feeling more at home in Vaughn's office than his own, and tossed a file onto the desk. It slid a bit before Vaughn stopped it and picked it up. "Want to tell me what this is before I open it?"  
  
"Just the debrief on your girl's last mission. And it's not all pretty." That certainly gained his full attention. He opened it, skimming the contents, noting Sydney's particular writing style. He could tell she was a graduate student; sometimes she would embellish more than was needed, though it did prove the normally boring debriefs more interesting. Weiss leaned just inside the door, as he had before, waiting for it. It took only a minute or so before Vaughn let out a long sigh and ran a hand through his already disturbed hair.  
  
"See what I mean? This also means we're headed back over to the Ops center, so pack your briefcase with what you've got left and wave bye bye to your office," he announced. "And you look horrible. Have you looked in a mirror lately?"  
  
"Not since this morning. Despite what you think, I'm not obsessed with my looks," Vaughn replied, collecting the paperwork on his desk. Weiss laughed.  
  
"You should be, hanging out with a man like me," he replied. "I'll meet you over there, ok? I've got some stuff to finish up."  
  
"Have you even seen your office?" his friend asked of him, shoving the folders and such into his briefcase.  
  
"Sure. It's over there somewhere. I've got more important things on the mind."  
  
"Like Becca, right?"  
  
"What can I say? She digs me."  
  
"Yeah, she digs you, Eric."  
  
. .  
  
He was scheduled for a 4 o'clock meet with Sydney to go over the recent mission, and ask the assigned questions ("Why didn't the camera work?" "Are you sure you did everything you could in order to complete the counter mission?") in order to clear up some issues. Ideally, he'd have already spoken to Kendall and Jack and figured out what exact information they needed, but with today being a non-ops day for him, that didn't happen. Which was fine - he was fully capable of holding on his own.  
  
By the time he'd arrived at the self-storage, he wasn't feeling very well anymore. For once he was glad he'd placed a small box of tissues in his glove compartment. Most were gone by now, and the ride to the Ops center from there would only be that much harder. His headache wasn't improving at all. The pounding reverberating throughout his skull pulsed louder with each movement he made, aggravated with each noise he heard. It was a horrid existence, even if momentarily, that made him want nothing more than to curl up into ball and sleep. For long periods of time. In the dark.  
  
It wasn't often that he fell ill. In fact, it was so rare that his mother often commented about it during his childhood. She would always count her blessings as sickness would spread through his school, thankful she wouldn't have to take a day off of work to take care of him. In the later years of his primary education, his mother was counting even more blessings, realizing, and thus, allowing him to do so as well, that as a single parent she couldn't afford to take any time off. So, being sick at the moment was an oddity to Vaughn.  
  
He hobbled, or walked slowly, into the gated clandestine meeting area, chosen by Weiss after hours of trying to locate a stationary meeting place for the handler and his charge. Simply, the pair of agents had run out of ideas for coincidental meetings between to total strangers. After awhile, they wouldn't be strangers any more with the amount of times they "accidentally" ran into each other.  
  
She wasn't there yet. Vaughn meticulously checked his watch, already knowing it was 3:50 from his car clock. Still, he checked. Maybe while he was waiting he could close his eyes, get a bit of rest. He certainly didn't know secret Asia sleeping techniques, only normal close your eyes and breathe slowly for rest. So he leaned against the cold metal links that formed a wall and let his eyes slip closed, his mind wandering through all he needed to get done before he finally would be able to sleep for sure.  
  
He wasn't falling - his mind was too tired for that. Instead, he was drifting uncontrollably, in the controlled chaos of his troubled mind. He could feel the dream coming in, the edges faded like an old movie on 16 mm. He half-expected silent movie stars to run out and take on the rolls of the normal players, detaching himself from the action unfolding around him. But the silent movie stars would not come. Instead, there was just the man, standing to the left of the figureless creature with a large gun, pointed at him. Vaughn's consciousness frowned, as if it could do such a thing. Someone had skipped the beginning, fast-forwarding him to the beginning of the worst part.  
  
With no buffer to rely on, his mind began to scream, willing him to run towards the man and his executioner, pouring everything he could into just getting there, just making it to his destination. He ran faster and faster, his feet arching, lungs burning, but he was too late - he was always too late. And as his eyes began to shift out of focus (had he dropped his glasses while running? Didn't he stop wearing glasses in college?), he heard a large sound.  
  
"Vaughn!" His green eyes snapped open, a look of fear etched on his face. Sydney Bristow stood before him, her hands clasped in front of her, in the fashion that she had just clapped in front of his face. "Vaughn?" she asked, her voice softer than the first outburst to grab his attention. "You look horrible."  
  
"So I've been told," he responded, finally gaining his bearings. Sydney took a step back so he could stand without leaning on the chain link fence, moving without any words having to be spoken. "So, I read over yo-"  
  
"Don't you get sick days?" she asked, interrupting him. His first impulse was to yell at her, to tell her to be quiet so he could finish and get out of here. But he bit his tongue and let her speak. In a half-hour, he'd be somewhere other than here.  
  
"Can we just get through this?" he inquired, rubbing his forehead, slightly frustrated.  
  
"You really should be at home, Vaughn, you don't sound too good," she continued despite his protests. He shook his head, trying to clear it.  
  
"I'm fine. Now, what - "  
  
"Really, you're not fine. Go home. I'll go talk to Kendall and my father," Sydney said, crossing her arms. A piece of hair came loose, but she made no move to tuck it back behind her ear. She seemed - perturbed. As if all she wanted to do something but couldn't. Vaughn sighed. Her worry was misaimed - wasn't he supposed to make those worries disappear, not cause them?  
  
"We were," and this time, he held up his hand to keep her from interrupting him once again, "wondering if you still had any of the equipment. We'd like to analyze it just in case." Sydney nodded, plunging a hand into her purse to retrieve the items she still had.  
  
"I'm sorry I don't have the camera, I had to ditch it before returning to Dixon," she smiled. In her outstretched hand she held a role of film, removed from the aforementioned camera before returning to her SD-6 partner. Her handler reached out to retrieve it, but her hand closed just before he could take it from her. A mischievous gleam came into her eyes. "I told you I'd take it in."  
  
"I can't believe this!" Vaughn exclaimed, rubbing his forehead in frustration.  
  
They sat silently across from each other, neither making a move to be the next to speak, each with their own stubborn reasons for remaining silent, hoping the other would prove to be weaker and thus the first to break. Of course, bother knew their silent companion inside the walls of cut links was no amateur, and had most likely received some sort of training that could be applied to this situation. That, or they had been a very socially adept grade-schooler. Whatever the case, they sat in silence; Sydney with her arms crossed and a warm yet fiercely concerned expression residing in her eyes, and Vaughn, leaning slightly awkwardly against the cold links, his face impassive yet determined. If a stranger had happened upon the pair in this state, they might immediately assume a lover's spat between the two who both equally believed the fault did not lie in their hands.  
  
Instead, both believed, in reference to the condition of the career intelligence officer's health, they were right; and neither was willing to change their minds. Yet neither held malice when attempting to impose their rules on each other. Both views were filled with love - or maybe intense concern? - for the other, a desire so fueled by buried feelings that to sway would be to deny their very heart. While neither was ready to admit what they only had a vague knowledge of existing in the core of their deepest feelings, every small battle won brought them closer to some goal not yet define. Insofar, it appeared as if no one would budge and life would be required to go on hold for a bit when something uncontrollable occurred.  
  
Vaughn sneezed.  
  
Now here, both parties involved stood at an impasse of a few small seconds. Each had been engrained from birth with the kindness their parent shad not been able to afford in their chaotic lives. And with this kindness came the automated actions pertaining to manors. And so, Vaughn found himself struggling with himself and the need to apologize to the lady sitting before him. Sydney, on the other hand, felt the sudden urge to give him the standard response, using it as a springboard to launch a new attack on him, the sneeze used as proof that going home to rest was the only option. These thoughts ran through their minds as fast as a bullet train, not complete thoughts, but fragments pieced together unconsciously.  
  
Sydney was never a good 'silent game' player, something she blamed on the fact that she was an only child.  
  
"Bless you." She blurted out before her mind could relay the message of silence to her mouth. A hand flew up on a moment too late, her face transforming to an expression of surprise and defeat. The victor across from her smirked as best he could in his condition.  
  
"Don't start smirking - you didn't exactly win," she commented, absentmindedly shifting her weight. "Who's going to miss you if you take an afternoon off?" Sydney tried to push her view in the minute of uncertainly. Vaughn stifled the silence-breaking sneeze's sequel.  
  
"We don't work in a profession in which sick days are permitted," he retuned, hanging his head back, eyes focusing on the ceiling. He'd never looked up there in the year he'd frequented this small area as much as his own home. It was a simple crosshatch of metal and pipes, a few industrial light dotted throughout the pattern here and there. He was sure it was combed over week after week by a man who now knew the area like the back of his hand, yet still wondered about its purpose as he searched it. Maybe the tech had created a story of his own, allowing his imagination to run wild as he idly check interments he had long ago mastered.  
  
What were they really doing here?  
  
"Not permitted? Another rule from the CIA handbook that must be strictly followed?" she surmised, her voice filled with the disgust usually used when referring to her monster of a boss. Obviously, she didn't hold the rules and employee of the CIA had to follow in high regard despite the consequences of breaking them  
  
"Self-imposed," Vaughn said, pulling his head forward again, his green eyes leveling with her soft brown ones.  
  
"Self-imposed?" Sydney whispered, speaking aloud to herself. For a moment, she doubted herself; was her concern really valid? Or was she merely doubting him when she shouldn't? He devoted himself so strictly that he would not even take a day off to recover. Her eyes took a look at him, a real look, noticing things she had missed before. How his eyes appeared tired, drained by work, his posture a little stooped, his clothing not as freshly pressed as usual.  
  
"The world doesn't just stop overnight; our enemies don't take a break while we sleep - "  
  
"But why is it your fight alone?" Sydney broke in, pacing a few feet in front of him. It wasn't nervous pacing, more a pace of control, of her feet moving as fast as her mind. Vaughn scoffed, the simple gesture turning into a puzzled laugh. Sydney stopped.  
  
"What's so funny?"  
  
"You're the second person to ask me that today," he explained, pushing off from the wall he'd been leaning against. Remaining still would only invite sleep, rest, something he had no time for. Only through action could he beat whatever he had, would kick it out of his system. He swayed a bit on his feet, but quickly caught himself, holding his hands out to fend off Sydney's advance to steady him herself.  
  
"Whoever it was,' she responded, letting her arms fall to her sides (obviously a move to make her seem less threatening) "had to be a wise person."  
  
"My mother has always been," he sighed, sneezing again. This time, no power play took place, no wondering who would break first. Vaughn promptly apologized for his cold symptom, yet held his voice at an empty, almost ice- like tone. Any genuine emotion emitted would only give strength to Sydney's argument, something that need no extra help.  
  
"You're no use to me as a pile of tissues - "  
  
"There are no tissues here!" Vaughn exclaimed almost a little too enthusiastically, hoping she's hadn't seen the interior of his car while walking in. That was something she certainly didn't need to know about.  
  
"-so just go home and I'll take care of the technical explanation," she finished, ignoring his protest. For a moment, she could hardly believe he was nothing more than a school child arguing with his over concerned mother. But she wasn't a mother, a sister, or anything of that sort - just a friend, a concerned friend. This 'label' should have brought her a good amount of sway, but Vaughn was annoyingly stubborn; a trait shared between them.  
  
"Sometimes," she started, half-sitting on some old, misplaced boxes, probably put there to give the area more realism. A few were labeled; 'Bill's Room', 'Kitchen', ex cetera, leftovers from someone's new beginning placed in a room where no beginnings would take place. "when I want to forget something, forget about life or the problems plaguing me, I bury myself in work. But after awhile, they all catch up with me, no matter how much I fight them. You've been working for so long; you live to work. What happened to simply living?"  
  
"I can't."  
  
"Can't?" Sydney recoiled from his answer. She seemed to change, more authoritative, more you'd-better-listen. "Whatever this is, I don't know. But we'll talk after you go home and get better before you mess something up as result of your insane stubbornness." A small grin bloomed on Vaughn's face, his defeat announced by this show of emotion. At the rate they were calmly arguing, he would never get to the ops center, and therefore, never get home (no matter what late hour that would be). This surrender was simply saving him time.  
  
"I'm going to remember that for the next time you wonder why I won't change my mind despite your protests."  
  
"If it makes you feel better," Sydney commented offhand, smiling.  
  
Vaughn hesitated. Sure, just a bit, he told himself, as did most things Sydney-related. But to rest was to pick-up where the dream left off; and who knew what demons would come out now that his mind wasn't as strong as usual to fend them off.  
  
TBC in part 2. 


	2. Part 2a

A/N: I've split this into two parts because, well, it's long. Enjoy, and tell me what you think! ~Kira!  
  
He didn't know how he got home.  
  
Of course, he knew how he got home. His car was parked downstairs in the climate-controlled parking garage; the keys heavy in his pocket. He'd walked to his car - rainwater flicked off his dark tan suit coat as he peeled it off and tossed it on the back of his couch. But these were observation made from his present, alert state, not things he knew from retrieving the clues in his short-term memory. The actual drive was nothing more than a fuzzy memory, the gaps filled in by the memories of trips made from the self-storage facility to his home so many times before. He paused for a moment, trying to reach out and grasp some kind idea of what happened, but paused after a few seconds. There were no police knocking down the door, and he didn't remember any kind of damage to his car, so he assumed he got home okay and left it at that.  
  
It wasn't entirely uncommon for him to forget the particular details of a drive, though when his strict attention was needed he was able to lend it. It just seemed, since the time when he began driving, that sometimes, his mind would wrap itself around his troubles of the day, things he never voiced nor showed while around others. He had to appear to be in total control at all times - he had only come this far in life by showing nothing around superiors, who took it as a sign of a man who could take care of everything. And he could. To do any less was to fail. If he were ever going to complete what he was there to do, he would have to deal with things he'd rather not before rising up high enough to *do* something about it.  
  
Vaughn could feel another sneeze creeping up through his sinuses, reminding him that there was a world that existed outside his head. He'd gotten sick maybe, what? - 3 times in the last few years? Did he even have any cold medicine in his apartment?  
  
He kicked off his shoes and made sure they reached the general area of his front door before heading towards the small, industrial-looking bathroom. The lighting was always so horrible in there, no matter what he did to try and fix it. The light always seemed to make him look yellow, sickly even, which was why he didn't like using it during hours in which the sunlight wasn't available to lend some good lighting. It didn't help that, when he flicked on the light, it popped before sending him into darkness. He swore under his breath while bending down to search the cabinet beneath the sink for a replacement bulb. Or two.  
  
"You're never going to find them that way."  
  
Vaughn whipped his head around so fast, he swore he had whiplash. His clouded eyes frantically searched the room for the voice's owner. Who was it that had spoken?  
  
"That's right, Mike, now your loosing your mind," he mumbled to himself, returning his focus to the bathroom lighting and the overwhelming need for some sort of cold medicine. Maybe Alice had left some - she was always contracting something or another to the point of bordering on hypochondria. She had, however, been quite adamant on making sure she retrieved *everything* from every nook in the entire apartment, demanding a telephone call the instant something left behind was discovered. He wondered, only briefly, if she would want her medicine returned despite her ex's health. Her response would certainly shed some light on the current status of their friendship. Such as if they even had one.  
  
It would be nice to have a caretaker, Vaughn thought as he pulled a lone flashlight from the nearby nightstand drawer. Some kind person who would not only find and replace the offending light source, but then proceed to scrounge through the uncharted territory of the bathroom cabinet for left over cold medicine. This was why people had roommates - unemployed, there all the time roommates. That was key, so they would be home in the middle of the day. Then, he wouldn't be digging one-handed to the back of the semi- organized cabinet hoping to lay a hand on a box.  
  
He never made it to the box.  
  
Vaughn's hand happened upon a bottle, a plastic bottle with a childproof cap, half-way to the back of the small storage unit. His eyes lit up, as much as they could in the dim light. His other quest forgotten, Vaughn liberated the medicine and leaned back to sit on the cold tiled floor, his back up against the door. Drawing his knees up slightly, he examined the bottle. The red liquid inside sloshed around a bit, and according to the expiration date, it was still good to use. A bemused smile on his face, he turned the bottle around in his hands, the plastic cold against his warm skin.  
  
"NyQuil," he breathed. He promptly drank some, turned off his phone, and fell asleep.  
  
. .  
  
The dream had been created by a child's mind.  
  
Sure, the mind had long since grown out of that awkward stage, matured into that of a grown man. Inside it was stored the knowledge of one who had seen the world, had worked his way through school, who loved to read but never had the time anymore. There were bits of information he longed to forget, other pieces he wish he knew more about. Names and dates came easily, geometry grasped easily, ready when he needed it. Sometimes, he could claim to have a photographic memory, other times, he would forget but make his way through it.  
  
But at the core was the child's mind.  
  
It was a mind filled with the names and powers of comic book heroes, the wonderful adventures of childhood characters, memories of afternoons spent running through backyards with odd clothing on and an old wrapping paper tube for a sword clutched in his hand. Happiness filled the child's mind as sunshine nurtures the world to grow and live. But the sun sometimes goes down in life, but always seems to rise again after the darkness. But in this child's mind, the sun never rose. Instead, it turned the shade of red, prompted by a story his mother had told him at a young age. With this overactive imagination, the story had spun into something more; a haunting red-tinted disk that hung in the sky just out of reach. It was hard to avoid the reddish light it cast.  
  
The adult mind knew the moon had turned red because of the sun's influence and hoped it would rise soon. But the child was still there, occupying the same space in time, and cringed away from the disk. 'Blood on the moon,' his mother had told him, all those years ago as a response to a question, 'it means something bad is going to happen. Be careful when you see it.' The child turned away. The adult stood his ground.  
  
The sand was soft beneath his feet, as fine sand is, ground down by the awesome power of the ocean before washing up onto the beaches of the world. Who knew where this substance had originated, was he standing on the remains of a seashell from across the ocean, or his own shores? It had traveled so far just to be put under his bare foot, squishing between his toes as a light breeze rushed across his face. It smelled of decay.  
  
His eyes traveled from the red disk in the sky to the site where the boardwalk had once stood. Now there was nothing but a gaping hole, the landscape fading off into nothingness as it continued on into space. The happy people were gone with the sunshine, the lone balloon floating off into the void.  
  
The sound caused him to focus on something down the beach from him. How could he have forgotten! His head dictated his body to move, to rush in the direction of the sound. This time, instead of moving in place, he kicked up sand behind him as he ran, seashells that dotted the shore cutting into his feet as he made his way. Not that he would have noticed, for he came upon the two figures in a matter of seconds, one standing on the sand, the other figure crouched with his feet on the dark black pavement that butted up against the sands. For the past few weeks, the standing figure had blossomed into a recognizable person, a person instead of a disfigured monster. But for some reason, he wished she had remained a monster, something he could never approach or see.  
  
Her cackles carried on over the crashing waves like a sonata flowed from a piano - beautiful yet deadly. There was joy in her eyes, the red of the moon reflecting in the dark brown orbs. She never saw him, only her victim, her eyes focused on him as he looked up at her. He could see the dreamer, but tended to look through him. Blood leaked down the side of his head, from what wound, he did not know. The woman was approaching him now, but the eyes, oh, the eyes! They never left the dreamer's direction. Never. Even when another shot was fired.  
  
The dreamer screamed.  
  
Vaughn awoke with a start, his green eyes snapping open as he subconsciously launched himself into a sitting position. The drizzled that had started when he'd fallen asleep had grown into a rainstorm, the drops beating on the window behind his bed in a disarrayed pattern, the thunder acting as a sporadic bass in a song scripted by the powers that be. He wiped a hand down his face, his eyes closing in self-pity as he took away the sweat with his hand. There he was, a grown man lying above his covers still in his work attire who still suffered from the same nightmare as he did as a child. And to what end? To work until the nightmare disappeared? Would it ever disappear, or would he be haunted for the rest of his life?  
  
Letting out a sigh, he let himself fall back, his head almost missing the pillow. He found himself staring at the ceiling once again, examining the roof above his head. A watermark had settled near the wall to the bathroom, no doubt caused by his neighbor above him and their leaking shower. He'd complained so many times and yet nothing had been done. His eyes slipped closed as he relaxed.  
  
He was first warned by a feeling. It sat oddly in the pit of his stomach, telling him something wasn't quite *right*.  
  
A swift wind quickly blew through the room, tickling his face before disappearing. This caused his eyes to snap open, the thoughts of a moment before fading with the breeze. A chill ran through him, caused by the wind or the cold he did not know. But his curiousity was deinatly peaked, giving him, if only momentarily, the energy to find the source and close it. He did not need to give his cold any more fuel - precicely what the damp rain soaked wind would do.  
  
He spied the open window across the small living room. "How did this get open?" he asked of himself, crossing the small room to pull the window closed. With a final woosh the air was cut off, laving a damp feel to the air behind. And yet, he still felt as if something was off. As he headed for the kitchen, his mind on something to soothe his parches throat, his eyes came across something sitting on the table standing between himself and refreshment.  
  
His father's travel-worn journal, lying open in the center of the dark maple table.  
  
The previous line of thought was pushed to the back of his fever-fogged mind, Vaughn advanced, almost afraid of what he was going to see. Fear caused by the undeniable fact that the journal had been placed in the top righthand drawer of the desk sitting on the other side of the room. His steps were heavy as he approached for a closer view, his head calm, searching for a logical explination - had he forgotten to put it away last time? His instincts screamed at him, warning him against moving on inch closer. He almost succumbed to the instinct, hesitating a moment. But his head won out, and the last steps closing the gap were taken quickly, almost angerly. His eyes quickly scanned the page, wondering which entry was the last he read, then stopped.  
  
Time stopped in the apartment. Vaughn stood completely motionless, the rain slowing outside the window. For all the years the journal had been read and examined by the writer's surviving son, never had the final entry been seen, read. To do so was to finally acknowledge the end of the life, the blank white pages flickering into nothingness. By leaving the entry unread, there was always more, always a continuation of the controlled handwriting.  
  
Attention was brought back to the present by a large boom of thunder, the windows rattling from the force. It was close, now, the storm's force centering over the area. Vaughn sighed, running a hand through his messy dark blond hair, his face worry-stricken. This is crazy, he though as his suit coat slipped from its perch setting on the back of the couch, obviously knocked loose by the vibrations through the small home. First things first. The journal was going back in the drawer where it belonged, placed out of sight and mind where it belonged. And this time, he was going to lock it in there just in case he ever wondered about how it got somewhere. The key to the desk was on his key chain, which, if he remembered correctly (something which he was actually questioning at the moment), was on the sideboard near the door.  
  
Food. He needed to - ugg. Scratch that. The mere thought of food put his stomach in an upheaval, causing him to pause in the middle of the room as he calmed it down. Damn. Okay, something to drink and some more cold medicine, that sounded about right. He grabbed the keys absentmindedly from the sideboard, but moved slower as a new sound came into his hearing range. He turned, looking down to the ground near the fallen suit coat. Somehow, his father's pocket watch had fallen out of the pocket, his constant carrying of the broken item a cause for ridicule that brought a small smile to his face as he bent over to pick it up. It was the source of the noise.  
  
The watch was ticking.  
  
He dropped it from his hand in an instant, letting it bounce on the floor as he backed away from it. "What the hell," he whispered, his heart beating faster than normal. Okay. There was a perfectly normal explanation for everything that was going on. Maybe he just imagined the watch arms ticking, personified the movement of the broken watch. Just put the journal away, get something to drink, and fall down onto the couch. There must be something good on TV. If he still had cable.  
  
The feeling residing in the pit of his stomach resided just a bit as he turned the key to lock the journal back in the top drawer. As he made his way back into the kitchen he gave the fallen pocket watch only a slight glance before flicking on the lights. This time, nothing popped, and the shadowed apartment was flooded in light. Vaughn leaned against the counter, his head hung, hands flat on the polished white surface. Sleep brought no rest, waking moments unnerving. What the hell was going on?  
  
"Michael." The whisper carried through the small room, sending shivers up his spine. His head came up and whipped around, hoping to find someone standing behind him, a goofy grin on their face as they admitted their little rouse. Instead, his eyes focused on an object sitting on the table.  
  
The journal, opened to the same entry as before.  
  
"What the hell is going on!" he roared, grabbing the closest object - a plate - and throwing it across the room. It smashed against a nearby chair, a few pieces skittering across the tabletop, knocking the journal from it's central position.  
  
"That's what I would like to ask you." Vaughn turned his head to the right only to come face to face with an ageless figure in his mind. His father.  
  
"What - what -" Vaughn backed up, his movements jerky, his arm moving up to point at the figure. "What the.why are you here? How?" His jumbled thoughts didn't help, making his speech odd, erratic. His father, if the figure could be called that, moved around the edge of the doorway. Vaughn was about to break out of the kitchen when the figure faded into the backlit shadows.  
  
"Loosing my mind," he breathed, sliding down the wall behind him. Drawing his knees up to his chest, his hands cradling his head. Books weren't supposed to appear out of nowhere. Watches that were dead weren't supposed to start up again. And apparitions of your father were the hell not supposed to appear in your kitchen. Ever. In a million years.  
  
Ever.  
  
TBC in part 2b. 


	3. Part 2b

Author's Note: I've been mean, I know. I've been posting this on sd-1 and forgot about ff.net. I'm going to catch you up here with the full parts.  
  
Part 2b  
  
There was nothing on TV.  
  
For a man who was rarely afraid of anything, especially anything remotely related to the supernatural (it was his Aunt Trish's influence that made him a little cynical when it came to ghosts and such), he certainly wasn't acting like it. He'd already picked up the phone twice, once to call Weiss and check that he wasn't loosing his mind, and the other, to call the aforementioned aunt to see what he was supposed to.do, if anything. But the logical part of his mind soon came back to save him from some downward spiral that resulted in being shut in paranoid old man and told him to stick it out.  
  
Just don't go to sleep.  
  
This wasn't a smart decision, since even the rarely-sick Vaughn knew the lack of sleep was only going to make things worse. In the long run, he valued his sanity more than his health, and while the cold would pass in time, insanity wouldn't. Not that he was going crazy. It was just the fever he could feel as he sat on his couch, the throw in the tossed next to him position until he got the chills again. This was a miserable existence. At least he wasn't asleep, reliving the last part of the dream. That was key.  
  
He lazily pulled the throw back over himself, feeling the beginning of a chill coming on, and mentally calculated when he could take another dose of aspirin again to take care of his fever. What would happen if he took more at 3 and a half hours, 3 hours and 51 minutes? Was there some kind of internal clock that said, uh oh, no way? He checked the clock again. God, he was going to kill Sydney for getting him sick when he got better. Or at least try to.  
  
Vaughn's eyes began to slip closed, unable to resist the urge to get rest and heal, prompted by the thought of being better.  
  
The apparition appeared again.  
  
Vaughn jumped up, pushing himself up onto the back of his couch. For all the years he wished he could see his father again, he never imagined he would be haunted, never imagined that it would ever come true.  
  
"What the - ?" he demanded. The figure of his father simply pointed to the desk, slowly coming into focus. The son's mouth opened wide into a horrified expression, being faced with the charred remains of his once patriarch and now hero standing in front of him, a bony arm pointed at the desk. He sat frozen, unable to pull his eyes away as if it were a train wreck seen on the side of the road. The figure, for he refused to admit this man before him was his father, took a step forward. Clumsily, Vaughn struggled to back up even more, and ended up falling back over the back of the couch.  
  
When he got up, the figure was gone.  
  
He sighed in relief; his eyes momentarily slipping closed as he attempted to grasp some hold on reality. A shaky hand ran down his face, a usually calming subconscious motion that brought nothing to him this time. He slowed his breath, hand resting on his chest. He didn't believe in all this, so why was he so upset, he asked of himself, turning to lean against the tall back of the couch before his legs gave out on him.  
  
"Please read it," the voice said, his whisper floating over Vaughn's shoulder. His eyes snapped open, the apparition inches from his face, hand reaching out for him. He screamed, his mind arguing with itself. This was his father, the man for years he'd wished to reach, to speak to. He had so many questions to ask him, to demand the answers from him. But this - thing before him wasn't his father, was he? With the conflicting views occurring so fast inside his head, he lashed out, pushing everything away from him. All he could see was red, a deep rooted red anger obscuring the world from view.  
  
The apparition could apparently fight back, making Vaughn's self- preservation all the more harder. He didn't even know how he was moving, or what he was doing. He just needed it to get away, to leave him be! The fighting persisted until he heard a crash, and an oof, and realized that ghosts don't make things break. The red haze cleared, his legs giving out beneath him, reducing him to nothing more than a pile leaning against the couch facing the remains of his sideboard and a very bruised best friend.  
  
Silence stretched between them until Weiss spoke, extracting himself from the wood splinters around him.  
  
"Mike?" was asked in a soft, uncertain tone.  
  
"Yeah," he responded, voice horse, soft, raspy. Knees drawn up, his green eyes were focused on a spot just over Weiss' shoulder.  
  
"What the hell was that?" his friend asked, picking himself up. Vaughn's red-rimmed eyes followed the movement, looking up at him like a lost child. "Are you okay?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Maybe," his friend said, pulling Vaughn to his feet and wrapping his arm around the taller man's shoulders, "you should get some sleep."  
  
"No," Vaughn protested, pulling himself away from Weiss' help. "I can't sleep."  
  
"C'mon. You have to," Weiss responded.  
  
"No! I can't. I - " he paused, his mouth shutting. His mind was so muddled, so incoherent that he couldn't figure out how to express what he felt, what he knew.  
  
"I what? Seriously, Mike, there's only so much asking I can do. If you don't wanna tell me, fine, I can take that, just - "  
  
"If I sleep, it returns. I need to know the ending," Vaughn interrupted him. His eyes lit up as an idea came to him, and he ran to the table where the journal still sat, untouched, in the middle of his table. He scooped it up and shoved it in his pocket before retrieving his wrinkled suit coat from the ground and donning it.  
  
"Whoa, whoa, where do you think you're going?" Weiss inquired, holding out a hand as if he could stop him. A bruise was already forming around his right eye, the sickening yellow color coming out in full force as foreshadowing to the later dark purple. Whatever was bothering his friend was strong enough to cause him to lash out so violently that even Weiss was a little nervous around him. While he'd run scenarios through his head while driving over to check up on his friend (he was acting under direct orders from Sydney, who actually considered smuggling herself in the trunk of his government-issue sedan), but being attacked once walking in the door was not one of them. Of course, when he walked in and saw Vaughn just standing there, a look of confusion and horror so strong on his face, Weiss knew something was horribly wrong. And when he started getting wild, erratic punches and kicks thrown at him, he was caught totally off guard.  
  
But if he thought he was getting out of this apartment in his condition, he was sadly mistaken. That's what best friends were for. To protect. But Weiss wondered if he could protect Vaughn from his own demons.  
  
"I have to go. I have to solve this before I loose my mind!" he exclaimed, exasperated. Weiss dwelled on that for a moment, observing his friend's behavior. He wasn't standing, rather, he was leaning on the couch for added support while making it appear as if he were standing on his own.  
  
"All right, all right, dude. If you can make it to the door, go." Vaughn started walking, his hand running along the back of the couch. "Hands in your pockets."  
  
"Weiss - "  
  
"Yep, you can go. Go right ahead. Go. Meanwhile, I'm gonna find some ice to treat this black eye," he almost whistled, heading off to do just that. Vaughn contemplated escape, but was overwhelmed with guilt for what he'd done - no matter how unconsciously that action was - and stopped. He turned as if he were going to make his way into the kitchen to help his friend.  
  
But all Eric heard was the slamming of the door.  
  
"Damn it, Mike!" he cried, running out of the kitchen, ice cubes falling from his makeshift ice pack as he stumbled over the sideboard's remains, hoping he could catch up. He tripped over a piece of wood, but caught himself as he pulled open the door. Rushing to the staircase, he leaned over it to find Vaughn, the man already gone from the building. Sighing a nervous sigh, Weiss turned around and pulled out his cell phone while holding the paper towel wrapped ice up to his eye.  
  
"Pick up, pick up, pick up," he muttered quickly, the words running into each other.  
  
"Are you going to drive me or what?" Vaughn's voice came through as soon as he answered, his caller ID prompting him to disregard the normal telephone greetings. That's what else best friends were for. Helping when help was needed. A smile spread across Eric's face as he took a step over to pull shut the apartment door.  
  
"Where are you?" he asked, starting down the steps, thankful his friend lived on the second floor and not the fifth, or sixth. Then the elevator would be required, since Weiss got enough exercise walking from his car to his desk every day. What more was needed? His eye was throbbing now, telling him the busied had progressed into something questionable. He would have to whip up a cover-story from here to wherever they were going.  
  
At least it had stopped raining.  
  
. .  
  
He was a sniffling mess walking down the dark, sleek hallway in his rumpled suit and perplexed expression. Usually, when someone was heading where he was, they would be stopped, albeit politely, and asked what their business was. With eyes as determined as his, no one approached him, yet they all gave him their attention as he walked past. He was a man on a mission, and could not be swayed even by the man trailing after him who wore such a deep expression of worry it could be surmised that his face would freeze in that position. It appeared unnatural on such a usually boisterous man, supernatural even. For something to worry him so deeply, it must be terrible.  
  
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Weiss asked, speeding up to match his friend's pace.  
  
"If I am ever going to sleep again," his friend responded cryptically, continuing on at his hurried pace.  
  
"Yeah, yeah, that's what you keep saying. Really, do you want to know the truth?" he pressed, still matching Vaughn's pace. Unexpectedly, his friend stopped in the middle of the crowded hallway, his eyes on fire.  
  
"Yes, I want to know the truth. There are only so many scenarios I can run through my mind before I loose it, Eric," he said as people swirled around them, oblivious to their little drama occurring inside their workplace.  
  
"You need to sleep. Come back when you've rested," Eric suggested. Vaughn rose his arms in frustration, letting them fall back to his sides with a small vwap.  
  
"Have you not heard a word I've said?" he exclaimed despite a growing crowd of onlookers. "I can't. Not yet. It'll get worse."  
  
"Fine, go on, buddy. But you're on your own," Weiss bit out. He hated himself the moment he said it, for Vaughn's face fell just a fraction, but enough for Eric to understand that his support was important to the sniffling man. Vaughn nodded slowly.  
  
"Take care of that eye," he commented softly, turning on his heels to continue on in their original direction, not even giving Weiss a second glance. Okay, that was the second time in an hour span that his best friend had walked off on him, and while everyone had their share of bad days, this was bordering on ultra bad. Add to that the warm reception he'd received earlier, and Weiss was sure Vaughn wasn't operating normally at all.  
  
Back up, Weiss thought as Sydney made her way through the large, window-lit hallway. He defiantly needed back up of some kind.  
  
"Sydney!" he cried to catch her attention. She smiled as she made her way over to him, her expression shifting as the eye injury came into focus for her.  
  
"What happened?" she inquired, always the worried friend. Just what he was at the moment.  
  
"That's not important right now. I need you help."  
  
"My help?"  
  
"Yeah," Weiss said, "It's Vaughn. He's gone to speak to your mom. And I don't know what he's gonna do." 


	4. Part Three complete

A/N: Part three is not cut up into parts. I'll post part 4 when I finish posting the parts at sd-1.  
  
Part 3  
  
He could feel his stomach up in his throat, his elevated heart beat, his intense apprehension; all things he shouldn't be feeling. How many time had he gone to see this woman before this night? It was no different no matter how many times he had gone in to face her - his hate would always kick in a minute or two in, instantly calming him down. What kind of justice did he receive from her being there, helping them? As the twin gates rose, he attempted to collect himself, pull himself into some sort of recognizable human being and not the confused and conflicted being he had somehow become in the last five hours. There were things he could not hide, though, that would give him away at a moment's glance. Such as his red, tired eyes, or the bruises he'd noticed while sitting silent on the drive here, sustained while he beat up his best friend and closest confidant.  
  
He was falling apart at the seams.  
  
With a clang, the gates locked into position above his head, assuring him that he could proceed to see the prisoner. Attempting once again to collect himself, he took the first steps towards saving himself. By making a deal with the devil.  
  
She was staring off into oblivion as always, a thoughtful look on her face as if she were working out some complex philosophical problem. Her window showed no trace of the on and off rain plaguing the city, only a whiteness that could never be mistaken for the real outdoors. A tactic she must have learned long ago came into place as Vaughn centered himself in front of her glass cell, letting him stand there and wait until she would move, then speak. He would not allow her to unnerve him, to push him off his game. She was not in control here, he was. Or was he?  
  
"Agent Vaughn, I was not expecting you," she said slowly, gracefully pulling herself up from her previous position. Brown hair tied in a ponytail swung behind her as she moved toward him, as close as she could be given her location. Her visitor was thankful for that, any closer and he was not sure he could be held responsible for his actions. His best friend! How could he do such a thing!  
  
A foot shot out behind him to unconsciously catch himself as he brought a hand up to his slightly lowered head. It was warm to the touch, a shot of pain traveling through it at the thoughts of his earlier transgressions.  
  
"Are you alright?" Irina asked of him. He growled under his breath. How could he have done that, let her see him at a weak point! And his head, why had he lowered it in her presence? He rose it quickly, almost too quickly, and tried to hide his wince as the headache intensified. His eyes leveled with hers, boring into her as they never had before. Irina recoiled only slightly, the resemblance causing her to believe she was facing a ghost.  
  
"I want to know how," he said, enunciating each word he spoke. A cough trailed, a short warning against his health should he continue to act so self-damaging. He was normally a very reasonable, logical man; a man who stuck to the facts and his undying love to figure out the puzzles put before him. Logic had long since flown out the window.  
  
"How?" Irnia asked playfully, a smile threatening to break free from her tightly controlled emotions. "Ahh," she suddenly said, realization dawning in her mind, "You want to know how your father died. I would have thought that would be in his file."  
  
"You'd be surprised," he bit out. A file could tell you cold, hard, indisputable facts. Cold facts that could only tell him so much, and from that, he could only stipulate what happened to some extent. But a file would never be able to tell him what had happened before the file started, or what the people involved felt. A history of exposition couldn't be completed because the party involved was dead. Was he frightened? Was it an accident? The journal entries ended before his father's death, no mention of his murderer in the pages before that still unread final entry. And what of her? He was sure something must have happened involving his father's cover before the murder occurred, blown somehow. The file told of the mission he was one, what he was to be doing. That was it. Nothing more, nothing less. Just a man's picture in a file grouped together with 24 others who died at her hands.  
  
She was laughing at him on the inside - he could tell that simply based on her expression, the slight twinkle she had in her eyes. They mocked him from the other side of the glass, mocked his devotion, his ignorance. Never his innocence, for that was taken from him when the news of his father's death had first floated into his small ears. No, innocence was reserved for those who had happy childhoods, those of family picnics in the park and smiling parents at birthday parties. His had ended at age eight, stolen from him by a nameless, faceless monster for reasons unknown to him.  
  
"No information is free, Agent Vaughn, no matter what pretense," she spoke slowly, the words rolling through her accent. "Are you in a position to bargain for the answer to your questions?" He could almost hear Jack's voice in the back of his head warning him against accepting any deal from her. Vaughn shook his head, the voice disappearing as he did so, and he asked himself:  
  
What price would he put on his sanity?  
  
"I am," he answered promptly. He knew if he held back he would never sleep, or at the very least, sleep with nightmares of an unanswered mystery eating away at his conscious. "I can't speak for the agency, though, just myself," he quickly added, just to be clear. The last thing he wanted was a meeting with Kendall and this woman's ex-husband concerning some kind of bargain he made on his own, an obligation they'd have to fulfill. He couldn't burden them like that, this was his fight alone, and he only wished he had something she would want in return. Though he was afraid what that might be.  
  
"You don't have many luxuries, do you, Mr. Vaughn? As a government employee you can't make much money. Why do you do it, then?" she asked. Vaughn's heart beat faster as he stood, separated only by glass, his mind crying out for her to simply answer him, to tell him what she wanted so he could finally hear the truth. Why couldn't she see that all he wanted was to know what he had come in here asking for, and nothing more? Why couldn't she stop playing her damn games and give him a straight answer!  
  
"That's none of your business," he gritted out between clenched teeth, his fists clenched tightly at his sides. His head was swimming, almost so much that he was finding it a little hard to calculate how much time had elapsed since he last consumed a swig or two of cold medicine. The numbers kept looping in his head, or, were forgotten as he moved on to another stage of his calculations. It was at least time for another dose, he could assume that. And this woman across from him, with all her games and hesitation, wasn't helping to make that happen any time soon.  
  
"I can respect that," she responded to Vaughn's surprise. But that didn't measure up to what she asked of him next. "Don't you think this glass is a little impersonal?" Was she asking him to come inside the cell of a madwoman? His fists relaxed a bit in his confusion and deliberation over her request, posed as a simple question. She was right, no, why was he listening to her! She was wrong, the glass was there for a reason, to keep him safe. Or was it to keep her safe? If he was intent on going in that cell to hear how she butchered his father he didn't know if he could trust himself in there.  
  
"Mr. Vaughn?"  
  
"Hrm?" came the curt, polite reply. He'd zoned out again, and replied unconsciously to his name being called. He pondered that for a moment, wondering when he'd crossed the line to responding to his last name from his first, from what his mother had called his father on occasion to what she'd called him. Had he really morphed that much, so much that he had become his own father?  
  
"Is this not something that would be better if said face to face?"  
  
"And we're not face to face here?" he said immediately, sharply. His patience was wavering dangerously thin, setting him even more off balance.  
  
"It's up to you," she commented nonchalantly, twisting ever so slightly so her back was to him, showing disinterest. He wanted nothing more than to launch himself at the glass, to press his sweaty palms against it and cry out her name as if she were a retreating animal at the zoo he loved. His expression certainly would have been brighter. But his control, composure, was ingrained in his character so much that behavior such as that would be intolerable.  
  
He shook his head, later attributing his moment of temporary insanity to whatever sickness he was suffering from at the moment. Whatever it was, it caused him to signal to the guards to open the door, fully knowing it would close behind him for security reasons, locking him in with her. This was the price he put on his sanity, though at this point, he wasn't sure he still had any of it left.  
  
"Agent Vaughn, be careful," the guard said through the installed loudspeakers, letting the glass door swing open. He nodded, ducking his head for a moment before taking a step forward into this unknown.  
  
Irina was ready for him, using her half-turned position to gain extra momentum, pushing Vaughn up against the wall just beyond the door as it automatically sealed shut. His green eyes were open wide as her left forearm pushed into his throat, her other hand resting against his stomach, holding him against the wall. She wasn't pushing hard enough to warrant a struggle - and he seriously doubted he could in his condition - something that could change at any moment. Here eyes were fierce, intense, and she knew she'd won. How easily he'd played into her hands!  
  
"There is something you can do for me," she whispered harshly, her breath hot against his face. "I need to know what your father wrote in that silly journal of his for the last week of his life."  
  
His mind zoomed, picturing random entries he'd read over the years, his mind's eye focusing on the dates scrawled hazily in his father's distinct masculine handwriting. Dates ran through his head as Irnia waited patiently, yet not too patiently, for him to respond. It was then that the younger man groaned inwardly in frustration. The last entry! It was the only one from that week, that contained the information she was asking for.  
  
"I don't know," he admitted, eyes conveying no emotion. He couldn't - she would pounce on him if he did. Now she was pushing harder, his last breath caught in his throat.  
  
"Do you want to know what I can do to you? The guards have called someone, I'm sure, but I have all the time I need."  
  
"Put him down!" If he could have turned his head, he would have; but Vaughn already knew who's voice that was. Sydney. Irnia turned to face her daughter, along side two armed guards and Weiss, all four of them holding guns at her. It wasn't bulletproof glass. Her face was expressionless, as if she was disgusted with her actions were it not for the information she needed. Was she questioning herself? How could she be doing that, Vaughn thought, a monster does not question their actions. And if she were, did that mean she didn't kill his father and not regret it afterwards like he'd imagined she had. His face twisted, his energy reserve diminished from the lengthy conversation. Had Irina not been holding him up, it was likely he would have trouble standing on his own. And this was not I-haven't-slept-in- four-days tired. Stress and sleep deprivation paired with the common cold was about to take him down. If Irina didn't do it first.  
  
"Let him go, Ms. Derevko," one of the guards said as the glass door slowly opened, the metal gates behind them finally locked down. The pair of guards advanced, guns held before them; Kendall arriving and standing behind the gates. She leaned into Vaughn, her lips inches from his ear.  
  
"Tell me that and I'll tell you anything you want to know," she whispered, "like how I watched your father burn. How he screamed against the flames."  
  
"Get off of me," he ordered. She sighed, but complied, raising her hands above her head as the two guards stormed in, shoving her violently against the opposite wall. Sydney and Weiss rushed in after them as Vaughn rubbed his throat lightly as he leaned against the wall. His head dropped, eyes sliding closed. It was just going to get worse, now, not better. Was his quest for the truth silly? In vain? Never ending?  
  
Weiss's hand came to rest on his shoulder. "What the hell were you thinking?" Sydney demanded from his other side, arm wrapping around his shoulders to lead him out of the glass cell. He could hear the guards coming out after him, the door shutting with an audible click. It was simultaneous with the sounds of the gates opening before them.  
  
"Yes, Agent Vaughn, I'd like to know exactly what you were thinking," Kendall's voice broke through to him, even though his eyes remained closed. He sighed deeply, thankful he was able to do so once again, but didn't move. He was simply too tired, too drained to do anything other than stand there under the support of his friends. But Kendall was not a man who would give up so easily, and his gaze seemed to bore into Vaughn's head as he stood there, thinking, not thinking - he didn't know anymore. He was living off things told to him, taken at face value, the sources trusted beyond all belief.  
  
And if he'd based his life off these things, did that make his life fake?  
  
"Actually, Director Kendall, he's not looking too well at the - "  
  
"I can see that, Agent Weiss," the director interrupted, "however, he was just attacked for no reason by Ms. Derevko and I'd like to know what the hell he was doing in there."  
  
"Personal business," was what Vaughn found himself saying despite knowing that was what he shouldn't be saying. Kendall rubbed the top of his head.  
  
"Personal business? And what may that be?"  
  
"Listen, you can all have your discussions and questions answered later. Right now, Vaughn needs to get some sleep. Then, he'll talk," Sydney broke in, stepping in front of Vaughn and Weiss, placing herself between them and the fuming director. His mouth opened as if to say something, then shut it. Sydney's eyes told him no more words would be exchanged, and he certainly wasn't going to be speaking with the agent any time soon. Kendall backed down, taking a step backwards.  
  
"Fine, fine, but I expect a full report on my desk as soon as you return. Understand me?"  
  
"Perfectly," Vaughn relied sarcastically as he pushed off Weiss's hand. Why did they all feel they needed to get involved in his personal life? They were coworkers, yes, and with that came the abridged knowledge of each other's lives. But that was it. So why, now, were they all here asking him questions, demanding answers he didn't want to give. They wanted him to sleep, fine, he'd go sleep. And stay home to rest, fine. What they didn't know wouldn't hurt them, and he doubted they were tracking his movements. He'd just have to find another way.  
  
. .  
  
Weiss took him home, the shiner on his eye as dark as ever. He winced each time he blinked (which was quite a lot) but didn't say a word, simple kept his eyes on the road as he traveled the crowded roads of LA. That wasn't going to last long, Vaughn though, Eric can't stay quite for more than thirty minutes, tops. And that's if he's livid.  
  
"Okay," he finally broke, turning to his friend as they sat at a red light only two blocks from Vaughn's small apartment, "what was going through your head when I came over earlier? Hrmm? Or later, when you staged a jail brake?"  
  
"I'd hardly call leaving my own apartment a jail brake," Vaughn quipped, staring straight ahead at the cars turning in front of them.  
  
"And the cause for this?" Weiss inquired, pointing to his darkened eye. "I've known you for years and you'd never been that violent, at least, not towards someone you know." The light changed, but the car didn't move.  
  
"The light - "  
  
"Explanation."  
  
"Eric, didn't we do this already?"  
  
And the car did not move. Of course, by now, people were honking at him, cursing through their windows at the driver that wouldn't move. Vaughn slumped back in the seat, arms crossed like he was a rebellious teenager being yelled at by his father. Not that anything like that happened when he was younger - and the pressures of having only one parent created an over striving spirit inside that kept him from misbehaving.  
  
"Fine, fine, just move the damned car already," Vaughn huffed.  
  
"Woah, someone woke up from their nap cranky," Weiss cooed as if speaking to a small child. Vaughn shot him a look - a futile effort on his part as Weiss was beyond the point of allowing his friend's glares get to him. It was a valiant effort, but effect less none the less. "Oh, c'mon. You've gotta have something on your mind if you don't laugh at the baby voice."  
  
"Have I ever laughed at the baby voice?" Vaughn challenged, raising an arched eyebrow. Weiss shrugged.  
  
"Probably not, but that doesn't mean it's not funny," he countered, the scenery having slid by during their conversation. Weiss slid comfortably into Vaughn's apartment building's visitor's spot. The only upside to this slightly narrower space was its close proximity to the elevator, guaranteeing Weiss never had to walk far to reach his friend's place. Avoidance of exercise - that's what he was all about, and the five feet to the elevator helped him do just that. He was also glad for it at the moment, its closeness would make forcing his friend upstairs just that much easier.  
  
"Has anyone laughed at it? Ever?" Vaughn replied, pulling himself out of the car. Weiss slammed his door, the sound reverberating through the deserted garage, his face a dangerous mask of mock-anger.  
  
"Someone did, once. Awhile ago. I believe it was you, or your drunken alter- ego," he huffed. Vaughn scoffed, joining Weiss in front of the elevator. The button was lit up, already depressed by the visitor, but the elevator had yet to arrive. Vaughn groaned in frustration, a hand coming up to slap his forehead.  
  
"This elevator takes *forever*!" he released with a held breath. Weiss simply smiled.  
  
"But waiting here is a great way to meet women," he admitted sheepishly. Vaughn shook his head.  
  
"I'm taking the stairs," he stated, beginning to turn towards the door to the adjacent stairwell, but was quickly stopped, grabbed by Weiss and forcefully pulled back.  
  
"Nope. You're with me until I find out what's going on, buddy."  
  
"Pushy, aren't we?"  
  
"Look who's talking." He paused taking a deep breath. "Listen, I'm just worried about ya, Mike. I've never seen you like this. Violent, going inside Derevko's cell - what's going on?" If he'd been animated, Weiss would have been tapping his foot, his arms crossed as he looked down expectantly at his prey in an almost humorous way. Instead, he stood somewhat slouched, his arms hanging at his sides as he awaited some - any - response.  
  
"It's nothing, don't worry about it."  
  
"Sorry, already worried. Why do you gotta keep everyone out and deal with whatever it is alone?"  
  
Third time that day. He was going for a record.  
  
. .  
  
He could feel it slipping, as if his mind had become liquid and could seep out of his ears at any moment. As a child, he would claim his schoolwork was too hard, and his brains were going to explode, burst out of his ears and ruin her walls. A patient woman to the core, his mother would smile at him over some housework and give her support. As well as mention that she did indeed have a bottle of cleaner under the sink that could take those brains right off the walls. He would nod after a laugh or too, his spirit strengthened by her mere presence, and start on the work again. He never noticed how sad her eyes would become as soon as his attention was back on the schoolwork, or how she'd pause, just a second or too, as if there were something more she wanted to say. She never did say it, though, and would leave to clean in another room, claiming to respect his request of silence while he studied. Maybe that's when she started slipping, or somehow, she clung to him like a life preserver in this sea of life.  
  
He would never do anything of the sort.  
  
His father had been everything to him. A hero, a playmate, a friend. To Vaughn, there was nothing more important than hanging around his father. They would hang out together when he was around, talk about guy stuff, or whisper in their own secret language around mom so that she wouldn't understand what they were saying. When the elder Vaughn would leave for a business trip, the younger boy would shut himself in his room only to emerge an hour later, his eyes strong yet with red still lingering at the edges. He would never cry in front of his mother, not even after he learned his father was never coming home. It was protection to stay detached, and he hoped if he did not stray outside the lines as he learned his father had, death would not come so quickly. Attachment only brought pain.  
  
This strong yet unconventional opinion was only strengthened by the flight of his agent, of the pain she felt as result of these attachments, of this love. Unlike him, she had learned to love after her mother's death, learned how to open up again. Look where it got her! She was miserable for weeks, months, and never seemed to heal. Instead, she re-opened old wounds, allowing herself to be hurt again and again. It was illogical, his mind told him, to do that to oneself. And while he was jovial and friendly, he never found himself close to someone ever again, close enough to share lives and secrets. He had learned how to hide it well.  
  
It was because of this line of thought that he could dismiss Weiss with a wave of his hand, lingering only long enough to listen to the jumbled explination of events that had transpired before.  
  
"I hear something crash and noticed the door was unlocked," he had explained, "you must have forgotten to lock it after getting in."  
  
"I would have done the same," Vaughn had replied, his gaze settled elsewhere as to hide the lie. Would he have? Or was this friendship simply superficial, a friendship of conceived to prevent a loneliness at the office where social relationships flourished.  
  
"Oh! My knight in shining amour!" Weiss had exclaimed. Vaughn shook his head.  
  
"Grow up, man," he replied, and turned to his door. The conversation was over, and Weiss stalked to the elevator alone.  
  
The door to the apartment swung open, but not as widely as normal. Vaughn pondered this for a moment before noticing the broken side table blocking the door's path, the overturned couch, and the lamp shattered in pieces beyond it. He had done all this? Understanding dawned in his mind, Weiss' explanation no longer odd to him. Of course he would have come running - they all lived lives in which something could happen at any moment to threaten the safety of an agent. He angrily kicked the wooden splinters out of the way before slamming the door close behind him.  
  
A breeze tickled his face. His cold green eyes darted to the window, which had opened again. For a second, apprehension gripped his heart, a stickiness developing in his mouth. With four defiant steps, he crossed the room and gripped the window frame with slick, sweaty hands, pushing it down and close. The wind did not stop.  
  
He spun around, eyes examining the other windows in the small living room for the other window that must be open. None were. Instead, the journal sat there, half hanging off the table, the pages turned by an unexplained wind. He fell into the nearby chair, his head resting in his hands. What a corner he had been pushed into! To learn how his father had died, he must read the last entry in the journal. But to do that would be acknowledging a finality that existed beyond the physical realm. Was he ready to kill his father in his mind?  
  
But the dream, the dream would never let him! So was this the key to regaining some grasp on reality? But would this reality be one he would want to face?  
  
"What do you want from me?" he groaned, the sentence elevating into a roar, the end of which was punctuated with the violent toss of a harmless toss pillow. It connected, knocking the journal off the table with a clatter to the floor. No, he would not read it, he would not cut that thin and final string connecting him to his father, to his past. He couldn't. Not as a son, how would he live with himself?  
  
"Stop hiding."  
  
The words were fuzzy at best, but at least they stopped the freezing wind. A sigh escaped parched lips, trembling lips hidden beneath tired hands. He would not cry.  
  
"Stop!"  
  
"Stop?" he asked of the air, of the past, or of the ghost, he was not sure. "You were never there and I needed you!"  
  
The voice did not respond. He snorted, annoyed with the air.  
  
"Exactly. I was all alone, a child all alone. And now, now I'm trapped! Trapped in a place I know there is no way out of. You warned me, didn't you. Never do what I do, Mikey, you'll just end up like me. But I *wanted* to end up like you! I never knew then, no I didn't. I never knew then how full of shit you were!"  
  
He was screaming at the sky now, the sky, the air, the small journal lying on the floor.  
  
"You never hung around me out of love, it was out of duty, of pity for the child you abandoned! Abandoned in more ways than one! All I wanted, all I wanted - " he paused, his voice cracking. Regain yourself! A real man does not cry, does not fall victim to his emotions! But he couldn't. The voices, the lessons from the past and present wove a net of sound around him, screaming at him to do something, anything but this! His eyes slid closed, his hands pressed against his ears, his voice shouting, pleading for them to stop, to leave him in peace. That was all he wanted! He wanted -  
  
"I wanted you to love me! Was that too much to ask?" The voices moved in closer and closer, his own mind's voice tumbling in with them. He never mentioned love in his journal. He never said it to you. He always left you alone.  
  
The others joined in the taunts, the voices unifying into one. Vaughn believed it would be his father's voice speaking to him, assuring him that his assumptions were right and he had never held any love for his only son. But the voices, unified, terrified Vaughn to no end.  
  
It was his own.  
  
Standing there, in the middle of chaos, both of the mind and of his home, he listened as his own voice shouted strong and true at him. That was the result of all the voices, of all the thoughts and ideas. It wrapped around him, the voice softening as if it were a lullaby soothing him to sleep. For a moment, the conscious Vaughn had the mind to fight back, to tell it that he was only doing this to himself, that it wasn't true. The voice was stronger, built for years by doubts and pain and issues never explored. And it over powered him, plummeting him into a dreamless, thoughtless sleep from which the weaker voice would never awaken. 


	5. Part 4

A/N: Here's part four. Just the epilogue is left. But don't worry - there's a sequel on the way!  
  
Part Four  
  
"You don't understand!" Sydney cried, her face a determined mask. Before her stood her father, his mask must stronger and older, yet with the same basic components. "You didn't see him earlier, dad. He looked - haunted."  
  
"There is no way you can go to Mr. Vaughn's apartment," he responded in monotone.  
  
"There is a way, if you're willing to help me out," she responded. Her father had indeed raised a master negotiator, who was turning his own lessons against him.  
  
"Sydney, this is extremely dangerous. If Security Section found out, you would be placing Mr. Vaughn in a great amount of danger."  
  
"Let me rephrase this, then," she countered, "I'm going with or without your help, so don't stand here and convince me otherwise." Jack Bristow looked at his daughter, at how determined she was, and knew she wasn't lying. She would go, and his help was optional. He sighed, giving in.  
  
"Fine. You have an hour. Past that, I can't assure anything."  
  
"Thank you," she smiled, tucking a disobeying piece of hair behind her ear.  
  
"You have put me in a tough spot here. I hope I have earned more than a thank you," he responded, but gave her no time to respond. Instead, he pivoted on his heels and stalked out of the office, muttering something along the lines of her as he did. Sydney wasted no time, and rushed over to Weiss' office, where he was tapping on his keyboard distractedly, his mind somewhere else, she was sure.  
  
"Weiss, I need to know how to get to Vaughn's apartment," she said hurriedly, her voice barely above a whisper. He turned to face her, surprised, before saving his document to give her his full attention.  
  
"You can't go there," he replied, concerned.  
  
"I already took care of it with my father. I need to get over there, I only have an hour," she said. He shook his head.  
  
"Fine," he remarked, pulling a pad of paper from around the other side of the work space. Ripping off the top sheet filled with notes, he scrawled the short directions to Vaughn's apartment and gave her the yellow piece of paper. She took it, surprised.  
  
"You're not coming with?" she asked.  
  
"I've already been out of the office too much today because of him. Plus, my profile needs some down time before another assault," he replied sarcastically.  
  
"And you call yourself his best friend?" Sydney asked.  
  
"It not like that. He just, he shut me out, Syd. There's nothing more I can do. But good luck."  
  
She quickly left the dim office, not wanting to waste any more time arguing with him. She could continue it later when the clock wasn't baring down on her. She rushed through the directions, not wanting to waste time at stoplights she could avoid. Twenty minutes after her father had given her a time table, she found herself underneath a moderately sized apartment building, a little smaller than her own. She parked where she could find a space, and hopped into the elevator with no idea that he had had been standing in this same elevator only an hour before.  
  
What was she doing? Not only was it completely unprofessional to be up in his apartment, but she was putting him in a lot of danger just by being here. Was it worth all this risk and work to go up and check up on him?  
  
"Yes, it is," she told herself in a whisper, watching the numbers count up to the forth floor. She prepared herself mentally for what she would find, what she would say. She exited the elevator as it binged, taking in the numbers of the apartments near her to figure out which way to go. Left. Go left. The numbers passed at the same beat as her own heart, the drumming matching the speed at which she walked.  
  
She paused, her hand balled up into a fist only an inch from the door. What if he was sleeping? What kind of check up would it be if she woke him up as soon as he finally got to sleep? The hand fell back to her side, the absurdity of the situation finally hitting her. This was going to cost so much, and she wasn't even supposed to be there! Yet the back part of her consciousness longed to see him, longed to make him better and free of pain no matter what it cost. It was this part of her thought process she constantly battled with, and ever since Taipei, the thoughts had occurred more and more. There was no room for that in this life!  
  
Distracted by other things, the apartment's occupant had once again forgotten to turn the locks after shutting the door, a daunting and almost automatic task he performed daily to the point of becoming mind numbing. But even the chain had been forgotten in his haste to shut the window, clanking against the door as Sydney slowly pushed the door open. The wood from the slanting side table's remains had already been kicked aside, but it wouldn't have mattered; she slipped in the small opening and quickly shut the door behind her.  
  
A million thoughts ran through her head. When you first meet someone, you often wonder where they live, and what their home looks like, how they decorated, things like that. There were other things, of course, that occurred within the confines of the four walls, things not seen outside them. It was a place where a person could be themselves, where they were at their truest. It was something she always had wanted to see from him, a Vaughn detached from his CIA guidelines and crisp suites. Did he sit at home and watch TV when he had the time? Or was his apartment crisp and clean from lack of use, the dust quietly collecting over neglected furnishings to be brushed off quickly on a day off?  
  
At the moment, it appeared like neither occurred inside. Instead, she found him collapsed in an overstuffed armchair next to a window, his feet curled up beneath him as he slumbered quietly. Her resolve softened to genuine concern as she watched him sleep, a smile springing to her lips. If it were her, she would have awoken the moment someone entered the room, alert and prepared to defend herself. Yet here he sat, asleep and content without the worry of being attacked in his home, in his sleep. That won't last long if I stay awhile, she thought to herself, scanning the room for a blanket of some kind. She found it, a plain, plaid throw humped into a corner at the end of the couch, obviously used as a pillow at some time in the past. She aired it out from the wad it was in before and carefully draped it over the sleeping form of her handler.  
  
"Oh, Vaughn," she whispered over him, "what's going on with you?" He was always such a grounded man, centered and in control. For him to, to be acting in the way he had been in the last few hours was odd, out of character. Something had to have set him off, to cause this change and she was sure it wasn't something as simple as a simple cold. A chiming from beyond the windows prompted Sydney to look at her watch. 30 minutes before her father's protection would run out and her presence here would be discovered, until Vaughn would have to learn to be attentive even while asleep.  
  
"A note," she told herself, her heart seemingly breaking in two. How much she wished she could stay to take care of him! Yet the practical half of her mind told her it wasn't worth the risk to him or his life. She struggled with the heavy thoughts, her steps weighed down by the reluctance held over departing. She'd find a piece of paper and write a note to him with her remaining time, telling herself she'd be satisfied with watching over her while Vaughn slept. Sydney took a deep breath as she started for the small kitchen, taking a moment to take in the coffee cup setting next to the sink, the dish setting to dry next to it. So he *was* the type who kept everything clean and tidy. Her eyes caught on something on the floor near his small table.  
  
Her curiosity peaked, Sydney bent down to retrieve the item; flipping it over in her hands as she once again stood. The cover was leather, old and worn, weathered with age. His father's journal, she surmised, falling to sit in a nearby chair. Didn't her father mention Irina's demand for the last entry's contents during her encounter with Vaughn earlier? What was it contained within these few pages that drove those who encountered it to the edge of a narrow cliff? Sydney held the book pressed between two hands, the cover cool against heated skin. She was certain her mother - Irina - had never read the page, and from what she heard of Vaughn's response to her demand, he hadn't either. Two people who were connected to the final entry that had yet to read it. But would knowledge of the contents bring the solace they both yearned for? Or would Vaughn (for that was the only one she truly cared about) fall even father from sunlight?  
  
She didn't have time to sit here and debate. Read it, she told herself. Read it, tell Irina what she wanted to know, and let Vaughn slumber in peace. She had her reservations, though. If she were in the same position, she was sure she would be angry if Vaughn had read something as personal as a dead parent's journal. But she knew, deep inside, that once the original anger settled, she'd see he was only trying to help, acting out of concern and not disregard. Whatever she decided, though, it had to happen in the next 20 minutes.  
  
So she read.  
  
. .  
  
Vaughn woke up some time later, when the sun had finally fallen behind the edge of the world and the chills of moonlight had descended on the city. His green eyes, clouded by a cold of the head, cracked open only a little bit as his body and mind once again reacquainted themselves with the physical world. For the first time in months, he felt well-rested, rejuvenated by a dead sleep. His eyes closed momentarily, then reopened. There was a blanket draped over him, which slipped off as he pulled himself out of a constricting and uncomfortable position. It lie in a pool at the bottom of his feet as he stood tall and stretched his arms above his head.  
  
He was feeling phenomenally better. Oh, sure, his head was swimming, but less than before, and he no longer felt the constant urge to sneeze. But he wasn't magical in the sense of an alien immune system in the least, and he still felt the cold hanging on. Just not as bad as before. This was workable, despite the fact that the workday was over. A single glance at the clock assured him of that - it was past nine o'clock at night. True, the CIA never slept, but he was mostly a desk officer, with normal arrival and departure times unless he was paged (something he was sure no one would do until tomorrow). He thought for a moment about calling up Weiss to cheer him up, but his eyes caught on the destroyed side table and decided against it.  
  
He'd have to clean it up. Groaning, he stretched one more time and headed for his bedroom, his suit passed the time in which it was comfortable - having been slept in twice today - into something that cost less money to clean. The tie he'd put on perfectly early that morning was now more of a necklace, the knot thumping against his stomach at the same beat of his heart. Slow, ambling, pained even?  
  
Vaughn changed quickly, the suit he'd cared for so much during his trip to the bedroom thrown haphazardly into the corner of the room, behind the door in a sweat-soaked pile of expensive cloth. His mind was on other things now, like how much a new side table would cost and when he would find the time to go purchase a new one. Detached from the sentimental value of his mother's contribution to his bachelor pad years ago when he first moved back into the city, Vaughn quickly scooped up the dark wooden slivers, tossing them loudly onto the Formica counter in his kitchen.  
  
"Shit," he muttered as soon as they left his hands. Without his attention to aim, a few hit the floor, splintering off under the lips of the counters. He looked down. A sliver of wood had lodged itself in his hand, leaving a gash about an inch and a half long. He plucked the wood out of his hand and angrily threw it down on the ground. Just his luck, he thought, heading for the kitchen. And that was when his eyes hit the note propped up on his small kitchen table. Vaughn grabbed it with his good hand and pulled it open.  
  
Vaughn- Stopped by for a bit to see how you were doing, but you were asleep and I didn't want to wake you. Don't worry, dad took care of everything. I hope you're feeling better. I've got to go, my time is up and I have something of my own to take care of. Sydney  
  
What the hell did that mean, something of her own? What kind of way was that to end a get-well letter? And what was she doing here?  
  
The journal was moved. Fuck the journal, he though, grabbing it in his other hand. Blood smeared on the pale covers as he crossed the room to the garbage can tucked inside the kitchen. A foot slipped on a loose runaway piece of wood but he quickly regained his footing and tossed the journal in with the trash. It wasn't worth it, living with it hanging over his head, controlling his life. His entire life. What he became in life was based on something he knew little about. It was his inheritance, passed to him by his idol. But now he could see he'd been fucked over, kept from a life of somewhat normality into an existence full of lies.  
  
Lies since before he could remember. And you couldn't trust lies, couldn't build anything upon him. And now he had begun lying to himself. Or at least realized he had been all this time.  
  
. .  
  
"Hey, man, feeling better?" Weiss asked, well, quipped. He seemed cheerful enough upon seeing his friend. Vaughn gave a half-smile, running a hand through his hair as he neared his friend. He'd been paged just as he was putting the finishing touches on his makeshift bandage, the message reading urgent, get here now, from Weiss. Something was up, because he knew Weiss wouldn't be pulling him from home after all that had happened earlier that day, how he'd been acting. Weiss could be overprotective when he wanted, as if Vaughn was the younger brother he never had, even though he had a few. Plus, he was only a year older than his friend, something Vaughn reminded him of constantly when being taunted.  
  
"A little better. I think I took too much cold medicine earlier," he grinned sheepishly. His hand started to itch just as Weiss took notice of the white dishtowel wrapped around it.  
  
"What happened?" Weiss inquired, coming up next to him, walking down the dark, cold hallway toward the conference room at the other end, the temperature notably lower since the sun had gone down. Vaughn hesitated for a moment, scratching away at the top of the towel, knowing it wasn't helping.  
  
"Huge splinter, I was cleaning up. Hey, listen, about earlier, I'm really - "  
  
"Don't worry about it," Weiss responded immediately, interrupting him. "You looked really freaked, though, I've never seen you so scared."  
  
"I was. I think it was just that cold medicine. Let me make it up to you," he continued, sneezing. He sniffled and took a deep breath. "You know, sometime when I'm better."  
  
"Totally."  
  
"Now, want to tell me what all this is about?" Vaughn asked, skidding to a stop outside the conference room's heavy doors. This time, it was Weiss who was apprehensive. Vaughn waited for a moment, then yanked open the door, interrupting someone who was talking. Sydney sat at the table with her father and Kendall, the three of them looking more casual than anything else in this highly-electrified atmosphere. Vaughn wasn't look any more professional than them himself, dressed in comfortable jeans and a tee shirt he'd pulled from a drawer quickly in the dark. Their eyes turned to him as he came in the room, Weiss ambling in behind him. Kendall rubbed the top of his head, a common movement when he was stressed. This couldn't be good.  
  
"Agent Vaughn, I'm glad you're here. We have a few questions for you," Kendall said, attempting to look inviting. He nodded and moved farther into the room to lean against a table, arms crossed defensively across his chest.  
  
"Ask away," he quipped, eyebrows raised.  
  
"Agent Bristow came to us with some information a few hours ago," he started. Sydney stiffened in her seat, her gaze falling to the tabletop in front of her. She looked so proper, sitting in the seat with her legs crossed, long brown hair sweeping down her shoulders. Nervous, true, but proper none the less. Vaughn's mind went to the note left on his table, a note, he now realized, that was left next to the moved journal. And she said she had something to take care of.  
  
"You read it," he breathed, intending it to be only heard by himself. Sydney heard him, though, in the quiet, isolated room, her eyes coming up to look at him. He felt betrayed, the stinging sensation in the back of his mind intensifying in the silence. Kendall almost rolled his eyes in unison with Jack, who sat almost behind Vaughn's tall figure.  
  
"Agent Bristow reported of information found in William Vaughn's journal," he said, attempting to break the tension, "information that shed some light on Irina Derevko's movements 25 years ago."  
  
"And what does that have to do with anything?" Vaughn asked, indignant. "We know what happened 25 years ago."  
  
"It's more complicated than that, Mr. Vaughn," Jack finally spoke up. Vaughn turned to face him, curiosity mixed with anger drawn across his face. Jack didn't move, nor did he acknowledge Vaughn's icy glare as he spoke. "Apparently, Derevko was looking for the same thing as the task force, who thought she was in possession of the information."  
  
"It was assumed, at that time, that Derevko was in possession of a disk," Kendall said, breaking in to clarify what Jack had neglected to do.  
  
"Right, a disk," Vaughn gaffed. "Thanks, really. So?"  
  
"Vaughn, your father found it," Sydney finally spoke up, her eyes coming in contact with Vaughn's green ones for a brief second before returning to the table in front of her. He released a harsh breath.  
  
"You don't understand, Agent Vaughn," Jack said. This time, the younger agent did not turn, instead, he continued to face forward, defiant, attempting to keep his temper under control.  
  
Wait, why was he wasting his time on getting angry? No one, at least at this point in the proceedings, cared about how he felt about the subject matter and its source. This wasn't grade school, and Kendall wasn't going to make him feel better. The only way to make this uneasiness disappear was to push his emotions away. They were only getting in the way of work. But this is why he was here, in the CIA! To finish his father's work, to honor his death. Nothing else mattered now, not now, so close to completing what his life had been about.  
  
He felt surprisingly empty, his posture slouching down. It were as if part of him was - missing, plucked from him as he slept. Where was the voice of reason, the voice filled with passion and drive? He waited and nothing came. He felt - dejected almost. Off-balance would be a better word for it. But he didn't care anymore, didn't care that Sydney had read his father's journal, didn't care that he'd been called in here to bring up subjects he'd rather not. He had a job to get done, that was it.  
  
"This information, this disk, is still being sought after," he continued, "if it falls into the wrong hands -"  
  
"Wait. It's been lost for 25 years and *now* you're worried about it falling into the wrong hands?" Vaughn interrupted. There was something he wasn't being told here, lying just under the surface of Jack's evasive explinations and answers.  
  
"It has come to our attention that the computer it belongs to has appeared on the black market," Kendall spoke up again. Vaughn was being tag-teamed and Sydney was staying out of it, now tracing patterns on the black tabletop with her index finger.  
  
"The disk is the only thing that will boot the computer, and now, with all the advances in technology, hacking it has become much harder," Jack explained, noting Vaughn's inability to connect the disk with the computer.  
  
"What's on this computer?" Ah, Weiss *was* still in the room. His question broke the team's rhythm; he'd caught onto it as well. What was going on?  
  
"We don't know," Kendall admitted. Vaughn huffed, the bandaged hand reaching up to itch the side of his head. Jack had finally had enough of this new attitude Vaughn was sporting, and rounded the desk with a practiced speed years of espionage had taught him.  
  
"All the people who knew what is on that computer are dead, Agent Vaughn, including your father. So I suggest you start taking all of this seriously," he growled. Normally, Vaughn would have taken a step back to defend himself against Jack's chiding. Instead, he stood his ground, not even flinching.  
  
"I am, sir," he responded, serious. Weiss took a step forward. Vaughn *always* said that with a slight hint of sarcasm in his voice, but now, what had happened? On the other side of the room, Sydney stood, surprised as well, and Jack simply blinked. "And I would appreciate it if you would be perfectly honest with me." Whoa. Jack looked pleased with the agent for once.  
  
"Slone has put in a bid for this computer, and will stop at nothing to find the disk, nothing," Jack told him plainly. At Vaughn's continued confusion, he realized something that was going to heed the proceedings. "You haven't read the entry, have you?"  
  
"No, I haven't, and I doubt I ever will," he responded.  
  
"Why is that, Agent Vaughn?" Kendall asked. Vaughn turned to face him, wishing for once he didn't have to bounce back and forth from his office to this underground operations center, each one with their own superiors. Devlin, while he did have his problems, was more agreeable that Kendall most of the time. He was forced to change his tactics depending on the location of his desk that day, a very tiring exercise in job security to be sure. He laughed, a laugh kept inside his own head, at the irony of the situation. Here he was, on the edge of some operation he was reluctant to participate in, wishing he could say some things to the men in charge here that would probably result in his loss of a job. He should start keeping a record of all his missions and hand it down to someone in a nice little box with his father's, hoping it would dissuade that person from ever joining up.  
  
Of course, if the recipient was just like him, it wouldn't work. Vaughn had his father's entire life as well as a written record, and he was still standing here, leading this life.  
  
"I threw it away," he responded, turning to Kendall. This was getting easier as he went along.  
  
"Threw it away? Are you sure you're feeling better, Mike?" Weiss asked, concerned. Vaughn waved him off.  
  
"What did it say? What is it you're not telling me?"  
  
"Vaughn - "Sydney spoke up from across the table, moving as if she'd like to place a comforting hand on his arm, but was unable to because of the distance. "Vaughn, your father, your father, he -"  
  
"The location and code for the disk was told to you before he left, locked away in your subconscious," Jack broke in, annoyed with Sydney and her emotional approach to the information they had discussed before Weiss brought Vaughn in. An emotional approach might have been a little softer, when applied to telling a man his head had been messed with as a child by a father he admired. Why would the location be stored in his head, instead of locked up somewhere? Reliability? And what was he thinking, subjecting his son to this danger?  
  
Unless no one knew. That must have been what Irina was asking about, when demanding the last entry's contents. She must have known the elder Vaughn had found the disk and hidden it, but was clueless as to where he'd put it. Did she really think Vaughn would have told her that information willingly? Or was she looking for something in the entry only she would understand? Either way, Vaughn knew he would have to face the woman in order to get the answers he needed. That monster would be more forward with him than these two supposed allies were being at the moment.  
  
"Now, I don't care if you tossed it off into the ocean; we need that journal, Agent Vaughn," Kendall ordered, rubbing the top of his head. Vaughn wondered momentarily if that motion was the evolved version of running a hand through hair when frustrated, something Kendall could no longer do. Had to be. "We'll talk more when we get it." He nodded to Jack before exiting the room, probably on his way home for the night, finally being able to relax. Jack remained in the room with the younger agents.  
  
"I understand this may be hard for you, Mr. Vaughn," he said, his voice softer than it was before, "but don't let that distract you from how important this information is." With a daily revelation of emotion, or at least caring for another human completed, Jack followed after Kendall, glancing at his daughter before he left. He'd talk to her later. The door sealed behind him, creating a vacuum of silence in their wake.  
  
"Vaughn, are you alright?" Sydney asked, rounding the desk. She swooped in on him with practiced grace as Weiss ambled over as quietly as he could - which wasn't all that quiet.  
  
"Yeah, that's a lot to take in, buddy. You still wanna hit the bar tonight?" he asked. Sydney shot him a glare behind Vaughn's back, but looked away as Vaughn chuckled. His friends looked up at him, inquisitive.  
  
"Maybe later, Weiss, there's still something I have to take care of. You can wait if you want," he answered. And his friends were once again confused as he turned and walked out of the room, just as Jack and Kendall had just before. Weiss turned to Sydney.  
  
"He's faking it," he stated. She nodded.  
  
"I wish it were the coldness, but I have a feeling it's not."  
  
"Where do you think he's going?" Weiss said suddenly. Sydney looked at him sharply, and both of them knew exactly where he was headed. The pair ran out the door.  
  
. .  
  
"You came back." Irina was a caged animal, slinking around her glass palace with the grace of a jaguar, just waiting for him to make the wrong move so she could strike. But it wasn't a move of physical actions, rather, she was waiting for the moment she could slip something in to get under his skin. She was lonely in the cage, lonely with no one to play with. And then he came in, casual, tired, cold; the last of which she wasn't expecting. Had William really done that good of a job? It would make things so much more amusing if he did.  
  
Vaughn came to stop directly in front of her, a thousand times more self- assured than the first time he'd come in to see her. She smirked at him, as if she were satisfied with what was in front of her, just as Jack had done, though he suspected they did so for two very different reasons. He stood straight, no more slouched posture, his eyes directed at her.  
  
"You are not in a situation where you have room to negotiate," he opened the conversation, "which means my request for information surrounding my father's murder requires me giving you nothing in return."  
  
"Nothing in return? You promised - "  
  
"I wasn't in any condition to be making promises," he spat, interrupting her. She should have been expecting this. It was a marvel to see all this in action!  
  
"Do you know," she started, leaning an arm against the cool glass, "what the date was on your father's last entry?"  
  
"What does that have to do with anything?"  
  
"The date," Irina continued as if he hadn't said a word, "is the same as today's. It's not a coincidence that you have felt," and here she paused dramatically for a second, "uneasy today." If he was effected by her words, he was doing a great job of masking any reaction (unlike the previous times he'd been to visit her). And he was effected - how had she known, how did she have any clue, as to the hell he'd gone through since before he'd even opened his eyes? There was no way she could have, except for -  
  
"Tell me what you know," he demanded. She knew because she had been told.  
  
"I was never intended to be the one you asked," Irina responded. "He always intended to live to return home to his family. But I had other plans for him."  
  
Was this the road he wanted to walk down? For years he wanted to know what had happened, why, who, everything. But now that he stood here, at the edge of his world, he didn't know if he was ready to jump over the edge. What condition would he be in after the fall?  
  
Would the bottom simply be the beach he'd seen in his dreams? The beach of death, with her standing over him as well, ready to strike. He had to accept that what she was about to tell him was what she had extracted from his father, tortured out of him. He winced inwardly at the thought.  
  
"He laughed in my face, when I told him I would find out where he'd hidden the disk," Irina drawled in that deep and milky voice of hers. It seemed to mesmerize the agent standing before her, drawing him in. "I knew about his background, his special training. I knew he'd hidden it in the mind of someone, but I never suspected his own son.  
  
"I found out later, of course, through channels. I knew where to look. It was eating him alive, I could tell. How do you take the child you love and use them as a tool in this world?"  
  
"You should know," Vaughn mumbled, his eyes falling to study the metal frame underneath the waist-high panels.  
  
"I do. And I know what that feels like, Agent Vaughn. So when I say it was eating him inside - "  
  
"I've got it," he growled like a disobedient teenager. "I've never seen anything about special training in his file."  
  
"I can have it found, if you'd like," Irina offered.  
  
"I'll get it myself," he declined her offer. "You assumed the way to extract the disk's location was in that journal entry earlier."  
  
"Was?"  
  
"I've disposed of the journal since the last time we chatted," he answered promptly.  
  
"That was a foolish thing to do," she told him, angry. That journal was the only source of the words needed to get the information!  
  
"I guess that just means the information will just stay locked away," he smirked coldly, tapping his head with a finger from the bandaged hand. Blood was seeping through the cloth, scaring the white cloth with a line of dark red. Irina would have snarled if she could. "And you haven't been as useful as I thought you would be."  
  
"Useful? What did you come in here expecting to hear?"  
  
"What is on the computer?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. She started with a small giggle that grew into a full-blown laugh. He stood there, slightly unnerved by her odd response. The laughter filled the small space they found themselves in, wrapping around him.  
  
"You are the spitting image of your father, asking about things you have no business asking about. You know what I told him when he asked me that, Mr. Vaughn?" Irina asked rhetorically. She was angry now. He wasn't supposed to figure out everything before telling her what was in the journal's entry! Now him and his colleagues were onto the disk and no doubt Slone was chasing after the computer. Plans put in motion 25 years ago were on the verge of being destroyed. She had to play this right.  
  
"Yes," he responded.  
  
"Nothing. He was cornered, with no way out. And he knew too much. He tried to fight the flames, break free of them. He cried for his family, for his life. I watched him die, Michael, and I felt no remorse when I kicked his charred body when the flames subsided. Is that what you wanted to hear?" she spat at him, leaning as close to him as she could from inside her glass prison. He unconsciously took steps back, the words she had said hitting him in wave after wave, his backward motion continuing until he hit the wall. His palms lay flat against the cold surface, her laughter echoing through the chamber. No! He couldn't let her have this power over him! He knew what he was getting into before he'd walked down this hall, he shouldn't have been surprised.  
  
"He was another meaningless death to me," she said. How could she say that? Meaningless? That man was his reason for *being,* for living! Meaningless? Never.  
  
"Vaughn!" He turned his head slowly to the source of the call, his eyes the slowest to react. Sydney and Weiss were rushing down the hall, ducking as if they were playing the limbo under the slowly rising gates. They knew this was not the place to be doing this, but it was where they were, as if it were meant to be. She rushed up to his side with no regard for her mother - Irina - as Weiss kept a kind of look out. "Vaughn, are you okay?"  
  
"Fine," he bit out. Her hand reached out to grip his chin softly, pulling his face up so she could see into his eyes. They were ice, or as close as they could be with his green hue. Her mother continued to laugh.  
  
"Shut up," Weiss growled as menacing as he could. This only caused her to laugh louder, at him and his attempt to quiet her.  
  
"You never read the entry, Vaughn. I know you're confused, but," Sydney bit her bottom lip, almost unable to look at him like this, "but you have to know he did love you, and regretted having taken his - his last assignment." It was Vaughn's turn to laugh, now holding his head up by his own power.  
  
"You don't have to make things up to make me feel better," he told her, giving her a small lopsided grin. She shoved him against the wall suddenly and violently, holding the larger man up by the cloth on his cotton tee shirt. So sudden was this movement that Irina stopped laughing, stunned into silence. Vaughn was just as shocked, staring at her wide-eyed.  
  
"You have to grow up and accept the fact that things are not how you thought they were. If you had only stopped being so stubborn, so filled with self doubt, you would know exactly how he really felt!" she yelled at him. By now, the guards had called Kendall and Jack before they'd left, signaling for Weiss to get them out of there before their superiors arrived. "He said, he said he was sorry about, about leaving you. About not being able to take you to that game you wanted to go to on the - "  
  
"Sydney, no!" Irina screamed, her hands plastered against the glass. What was she yelling about now? Sydney glanced over her shoulder at her, making sure to keep her solid grip on Vaughn as her back was turned to him. "Don't!"  
  
"Why shouldn't she?" Weiss demanded. He was sick and tired of watching this woman crush his best friend every time he came out of here, of letting her mere presence depress him every day.  
  
"When I asked William for the code, for the words, he told me they were about a hockey game on a certain date," she explained, rushed. Jack and Kendall's footfalls could be heard coming down the hallway, still beyond their view. She had to get this out before they approached! "He told me it so I would say it, it's a failsafe!"  
  
"What am I, a fucking hard drive?" Vaughn demanded. He attempted to twist out of Sydney's hold, causing her to turn her back on Irina once again. The gates were opening now.  
  
"Listen to me! Don't you understand? This is bigger than you, or Vaughn - it was put into motion 25 years ago and now it will conclude!"  
  
"What are you talking about?" Sydney asked, her eyes still locked with her handler's.  
  
"You *have* to protect the disk at all costs! Don't ever let the failsafe out, or you will set in motion a chain of events you do not want to see the end of."  
  
"I've had enough of this!" Vaughn roared, the rage caused by confusion, helplessness, reaching a boiling point. With unseen force, he pushed Sydney from before him, ignoring her as she fell to the floor near his feet. Weiss moved to block his path, but Jack got there first, hitting Vaughn clock in the face. He stumbled back, nearly loosing his footing, blood seeping from a broken lip. His hand came up to nurse his aching jaw.  
  
"Agent Vaughn, I hope I never see you treat my daughter like that again," he told the younger agent, eyes dark. Irina stood silent, watching the scene before her, hoping they would stay in her view if she stayed quiet.  
  
"Or what, you'll kill me? That would put a damper on your plans now, wouldn't it."  
  
"Oh, stop it!" Sydney cried. "What happened to you today?"  
  
Vaughn blinked, his hand falling to his side. He didn't have an answer for her. What *had* happened to him today? He wasn't feeling well, that he knew, but what exactly had been going on? He turned to Irina, one of her comments coming back to the surface of his consciousness. His eyes softened, childlike, asking her what was going on. What had the world come to when a man had to ask his father's killer for his sanity back?  
  
She had no answers either. She could only look down, then turn back into her cell. He hung his head.  
  
"C'mon, buddy, let's get you home. Nothing a little sleep can't fix," Weiss suggested, putting a hand on Vaughn's shoulder. He shrugged it off, covering his face with his hands. But instead of tell his friend that he didn't need any sleep, or keeping any of it to himself, he found himself being driven home, the day's events pouring out of him faster than he could think. Sydney listened, through an earpiece Weiss had put in before leaving, her comments being conveyed through him. They were there for him, as he had been so many times before. 


	6. Epilogue

Epilogue  
  
Epilogue  
  
~  
  
The apartment certainly looked better than before. Weiss and Sydney (under the cover of her father) had swept through the small living space, cleaning it in record time, careful to be quiet as their friend slept in the next room. Midnight seemed an unconventional time for the pair to be cleaning, but they were unconventional people stuck in unusual circumstances. The vacuum would be run later, maybe in the morning when it wouldn't disturb so many people. The pair was simply lucky Vaughn had been utterly exhausted and fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow, not even allowing for the time needed to change out of his clothes.  
  
At least, that's what they thought.  
  
Behind the closed door to his bedroom, Michael Vaughn sat at the edge of his bed, his feet hanging on the metal frame for his bed like they had so many times as a child. The metal cut into his feet, but he was too distracted to notice. Hunched over next to the lamp on his bedside table, he held his father's journal in his hand, the pages held down with his thumb. Only five minutes before had he sat in the bathroom, desperately attempting to rid the cover of the blood from his now properly-dressed hand, surprised that his cleaning crew hadn't heard the running water from his bathroom sink. He was left with a pinkish smear across the cover, but he would have to live with it as a constant reminder of the day, of his doubts.  
  
The handwriting was messier than normal, scrawled in a short time late at night, the day before his plane was to leave. His lips curved up as he noticed the date - how Irina had known that, he would never know and he never intended to ask her about it either. There were just some things he'd rather not know;, the old saying 'ignorance is bliss' coming to mind. He didn't need to know details, just truths, and simple ones at that.  
  
Such as the one Sydney (and thank God she wasn't angry with him!) had tried to tell him back in the small hallway outside Irina's glass prison. It was there, staring at him in faded black ink. His father's unwavering love and devotion to his family, his internal struggle over having to leave them behind all the time. The smile on Vaughn's face grew as he read that paragraph, his faith in his idol restored.  
  
And then there was a section dedicated to him, should he read the journal. He flipped the page, the index finger from his other hand resting at the top of the page.  
  
I hope you can understand what I did at some point in your life, my boy.  
  
I never meant for you to become involved in my mistakes, but I know you will grow into the type of man who will know what to do when that day comes. I know you will be confused, lost even, but it will not last. You're stronger than that. I wish I could be there to see you when you're older, and save you from this future.  
  
Despite this journal, I know you will want to follow in my footsteps, you're much too stubborn to be dissuaded. Please be careful and don't repeat my mistakes.  
  
Vaughn sighed, lifting his head. His eyes focused on a photograph he had hanging on the wall, one of his family a few years before his father's death. How had he missed the extra worry-lines engraved around his father's sparkling eyes? Or the worry that resided there, before this moment? His mind zoomed to a college philosophy course, and the teachings of some Asian school of thought, that the reality we see isn't reality at all. Is that what his father was trying to tell him? Irina as well? Warning the children of the next generation that things aren't always what they seem?  
  
What had they gotten this generation into?  
  
A crash in the other room took his attention away from the photograph. For a second, he considered going out there, but stayed put as he heard Weiss swear and Sydney chastise him for being too loud. This is what the elder generation didn't have - trust, fellowship, support.  
  
Michael Vaughn considered himself a very lucky man.  
  
If that was what the afternoon's events were trying to show him, they succeeded. And he was sure the message had been received.  
  
He clicked off the lamp, waiting for them to notice the change in light, but he wasn't caught. The rain had stopped, which made Vaughn frown. He enjoyed listening to its calming rhythm when it came to falling asleep. He lay there, atop of his covers still dressed from that evening, his shoes lying at the end of the bed where he'd kicked them off. The soft scurrying of his friends gathering their things floated through the thin door and was followed by the thunk of his front door shutting as they left. He sighed, laying his arm over his eyes. What a day!  
  
He certainly was tired despite the nap he had taken earlier that day. His eyes slowly slipped closed, the last thing he remembered thinking was that he was never going to be able to sleep. As soon as he had fell asleep though, he was back in the dream.  
  
At first, he had no idea what was going on. Where there had been blood before there was now just simple tan sand, where there had been screams, now the ocean's soft waves sounded unhindered. He twisted around, trying to figure out where he was. At least he was wearing shoes this time, the sand moving out of the way as he took several experimental steps. This was the same beach, wasn't it?  
  
"Mikey!" He knew that voice! He whipped around as fast as he could, a smile springing to his face. "There you are! Don't wander off like that again!" It was his father, dressed casually for a day at the beach, his face formally so full of worry, now sporting a smile that matched Vaughn's own. At first, Vaughn felt like he was in a memory, one in which he had wandered off as usual. But then, once noticing that it was still the moonlit beach with the absence of people, he rethought his position. Had his father in his dream meant wander off in regard to himself? That Vaughn had strayed from some kind of predestined path?  
  
The father put an arm around his son, the feeling odd, as Vaughn was now a few inches taller than his father (he'd never noticed how tall he was before being compared here to the 'giant', as he had called him). He looked at him oddly, the look reflected in the other's matching eyes.  
  
"What's wrong with you, Mikey? You look like you've seen a ghost!" his father exclaimed. Vaughn laughed. It was a loud, rich laugh, releasing all the apprehension he'd held inside all day. He had seen a ghost, hadn't he? The ghost of his father, as created in his mind. All put in motion so many years in the past, flooding him with the experiences that should have been spread out over a longer period. It was all because of his stubbornness, his refusal to read that one final entry. How different would the day have been, if he had just read it?  
  
It was as if he were programmed, in a way, to break down at a certain point. What if he had read it all those years ago, gotten the disk and given the computer to the CIA? This wouldn't have happened, would it have?  
  
"No, Mikey, I supposed not," his father sighed next to him. Shocked, Vaughn turned to the man who was still leading him down the beach. Had he been listening in on his son's thoughts?  
  
"A breakdown was the only way?"  
  
"You read it, didn't you?" the father said, stopping near the steps to the boardwalk. "I'm sorry to put you through all this, son. I knew if you hadn't read it by now, you must have hated me. I had to show you the truth."  
  
"The truth."  
  
"Don't ask me, you're creating all this. This was simply your way of working through your problems. Some people take up kick boxing to battle their demons, son. You're still quite the drama king, so to speak."  
  
They were standing side by side, facing the ocean. The moon was slowly slipping down the sky, the stars already fading in the early morning sky.  
  
"So they're gone?" he asked, hopeful. His father shook his head.  
  
"They're never gone. You simply came to an understanding. You're free," he smiled, sitting down on the sand. Vaughn continued to stand, his hands laced together behind his head. Free? Yes, he could see that, for sure. "Now sit down and watch the sunrise with me," his father asked, beckoning him to sit with his hand. Vaughn smirked, falling to the sand with a whoosh.  
  
The sunrise was beautiful.  
  
In her cell, Irina Derevko smiled. It was time. She would only have to wait a little longer, just a little longer.  
  
~  
  
And that's it! I hope you enjoyed it! The sequel's in the works, so keep your eyes open for it! 


End file.
